


The World from Gabriel's Perspective

by MerakiandMangoes



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 11 - Freeform, AU, Amara - Freeform, Angel Family, Angels, Brothers, F/M, Family, Gen, M/M, Multi, Season 11 au, angel - Freeform, bro love, brother, season
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 21:16:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 73,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6300739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MerakiandMangoes/pseuds/MerakiandMangoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel finds himself alive (and naked) in a field of kale somewhere near Muncie, Indiana. A combination of current story lines and past memories from Gabriel's ridiculously long and convoluted life, both in Heaven with his brothers and on earth as Loki. An alternate story line for Season 11, episode 14 on wards. Gabriel decides to lend a hand. Pranks, brotherly love and manly d&ms abound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work picks up after Season 11 episode 14. It is taking a completely different path to what the actual show is taking, with a few fan-favorites (like Gabriel and Balthazar) thrown in. Please note this was written before any other episodes came out, so will be pretty different and probably clash with the actual show. I just felt like changing things up :) I'll be updating with a thousand words each week, but it's really just for fun so I'm not going to put a set word limit. I hope you all enjoy, let me know what you want to see, and please be kind! It's taken me a long time and a lot of courage to get back into writing and posting :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel finds himself alive (and naked) somewhere near Muncie, Indiana. He contemplates his relationship with his younger brother, Castiel, and reflects on memories learning from his older brothers when he was young in Heaven.

Muncie, Indiana, 9th of January 2016:

 

A suffocating dampness surrounded him. His body lay stiff and cold. There existed around him no light nor sound; no oxygen could reach his lungs. With a great effort, Gabriel managed to shift his leg very slightly; his muscles ached in protest. He pressed against the weight on top of him, and felt it give. His mouth, ears and nose were still clogged, but he felt cold air on his back. Pushing harder, he freed his face, spitting out the clammy mud and smelling fresh air, mixed with fertiliser and the clean smell of whatever the vegetables that had been planted over his body were. He recognised quite quickly their identity; kale. Said kale had been lovingly covered in a seemingly endless net. He cursed whoever the fuck thought vegetables needed a net, and, with great difficulty, untangled himself. The irony? Gabriel hated kale.

 

Gabriel slumped to the ground, his eyes facing the night sky. He wrinkled his nose against the smell of kale and fertilizer, breathing in through his mouth. He felt the soil around him, and the things that moved within it. Rather than thinking too much about what these things could be,  he focussed his mind instead on evaluating his situation. He tested his body, slowly regaining movement. He wiggled his toes and fingers, stretched his arms and legs and began to flex his torso and contort his face, and with an effort lift himself up into a seated position. He became very suddenly aware of the biting wind, and the sharp drop in temperature it brought. The stars above him shone like spotlights down on him. He squinted in protest. Behind his eyes he felt the darkness that had only moments ago engulfed him. It was cold, and liquid, and seeped into every part of him; his mouth, his eyes, his ears. He reached up to touch his face. He could still feel the grime of the oily black coating his skin and hair, but when he looked at his hand, it was clean, bar a few specks of dirt from the earth around him.

 

The next thing he became aware of was his stark nudity. It explained why he was so cold, but posed quite a few more questions than it answered, ones which he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted explained. It gave him a chance to test the strength of his abilities. He managed to conjure a very simple outfit: a jacket, button-down, jeans and a pair of tennis shoes. It wasn’t much, and he couldn’t get the soil or its smell off of him, but it would do. His powers were weak; he would have to learn to prioritize.

He stood. It was like trying to walk with the coldest ton of iron in the universe on his back. Despite the heaviness, his head felt light, causing him to sway where he stood. His face fell as he looked around; beyond him and to all sides lay fields and fields of kale. Gabriel honestly wondered if that many people ate kale, as repulsive as it was (in his opinion). Nevertheless, he had no choice but to move, with the smell of the stuff as a companion the entire way.

Someone really must’ve had it out for him.

 

\-----

 

One week later, somewhere in the Northern Canadian wilderness (present time):

 

Gabriel stared down at the prostrate form of his younger brother. He couldn’t say in what way; the experience was unique and foreign to Gabriel. He had been stared down at by an elder, but he’d never done the staring. He had to admit, Gabriel had seen most of his Father’s “plan” coming, but he never could’ve picked out this one low-ranking, monotonous and confused little angel all wrapped up in the standard suit and tie as being as influential as he had become. He’d never really payed that much attention to angels younger than him, and payed them even less after he had run away.

 

Unlike Sam and Dean, Gabriel could see Castiel’s wings, which lay tattered and badly scarred on the snow; the left one had been bent at an impossible angle, and there were patches of matted feathers and bare skin interspersed among them. The scars weren’t fresh either; they had healed over long ago and formed jagged ridges across the feathers that were left. Castiel couldn’t have flown in months. This meant he hadn’t had the juice to heal himself, for whatever reason, and Sam and Dean of course would’ve been no help. Injuries that bad would take a lot of time and effort to fix, even for Gabriel, and at his absolute best (which he was not at).

 

Castiel began to stir. Coagulated blood seeped out of his mouth, staining the snow. He began to twitch, turning his head. Gabriel squatted down closer to him. Castiel looked up at him, in the way someone looks up when they’re both shocked and in a lot of pain.

Gabriel knew the feeling.

 

\-----

 

Heaven, before Lucifer’s fall:

 

Gabriel felt a sharp pain go through his forehead, and tasted grass in his mouth.

 

“Lucifer!”, he heard Michael bark, followed by Lucifer’s laughter. Gabriel lifted his head slightly, the pain still smarting. He saw Lucifer bent over by the side of the clearing, snickering.

 

“What?” asked Lucifer, “He’s gotta learn to fight sometime.”

 

“He is learning to fight; properly.”

 

“You can’t expect everyone to always play fair. There’s gonna be exceptions, right?”

 

Gabriel saw Michael’s face darken as he looked up. Along his line of sight he also saw the source of his pain; a ball, solid metal; probably meant as a paperweight or something. Michael knelt down to help Gabriel up.

 

“There are no need for tricks, both of you,” Michael said. Then to Gabriel, he added, “You follow my and Father’s instructions; pay no attention to Lucifer’s tricks. They are not honorable and are not necessary. It is important for you to fight with honor; fairly. Defeat your enemy, but show them mercy, as I have done to you.”

 

“Can you take away the pain, too?” Gabriel asked, rubbing his head.

 

“No.” Michael replied.

 

“What happened to mercy?” Lucifer asked.

 

Michael fell silent.

 

\----


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel and Castiel talk. More of Gabriel's journey to this point in time is revealed.

Northern Canada, present time:

“Gabriel?” Castiel wheezed.

“In the flesh”. He gripped Cas’s hand, and heaved him to his feet. Cas fell into him, but regained his footing loosely.

“It hurts”.

“I bet”.

“Can you fix it?”

“No.”

Castiel looked resigned. He swayed slightly.

“Are you alive?” His eyes stared imploringly into Gabriel’s.

“Yep.”

“Then where the hell have you been?” Cas’s voice turned gruff; he looked as though he would be angry if he had the strength.

\----

 

Muncie, Indiana, 10th of January 2016:

 

After a good ten minutes of staggering through the field of kale, Gabriel came upon a bitumen road. There were no cars in sight, so he walked. He didn’t have a watch or a phone, but he guessed it was for about one hour. Eventually, lights appeared behind him. He stuck out his thumb, and the truck pulled over.

 

As he dragged himself into the passenger seat, the smell of cigarette smoke and whiskey filled his nose, while pin-ups made up the majority of the surrounding decor. Classy. Still, he wasn’t complaining.

 

“Where’re you headed?” The driver drawled.

“Closest source of alcohol. Don’t care what kind.”

 

The truckie laughed at this, and gunned the engine. They sputtered to a stop at a roadhouse. Gabriel staggered in, still exhausted. He must’ve reeked, but he didn’t care. He fell into the bar, and ordered the strongest thing they had. He spotted a couple of girls further down the bar, and smiled and winked. They looked away in disgust, and left to sit somewhere else. He didn’t blame them; he had been dead not long ago, and had woken up in a field of kale.

 

Fortunately, his current state meant that he was able to get pissed much quicker than usual, and he was plastered by about ten drinks. The rest of the night was a blur, but he must’ve been kicked out at some point, probably when they realised he didn’t have any money. He woke up the next morning surrounded by fog and snow, in a trash heap behind the bar. His shoes and jacket had been stolen, but he appeared to still have his kidneys, so he called it a good night.

 

The reading of the date of an old newspaper combined with the winter air hit him like a semi-trailer. He’d been a long time gone.

 

\----

 

He stared into Cas’s eyes. They were growing in fury. He repeated himself, “Where have you been?”  

 

“Well, for the most part, dead.” Gabriel replied, bluntly.

 

Cas’s anger seemed to dull a bit; he couldn’t exactly fault him for that.

 

“And what about the other part?”

 

“Well I spent a while in a kale field, tried my luck at hitchhiking, stopped off in a road house, but I can’t say I remember much of that,” He added, “then spent the rest of the day wandering aimlessly, and, oh yeah, having my head blown apart. Fun times.” It wasn’t technically a lie; he had done all those things, just among others.

 

Castiel looked confused. “But your head looks fine?”

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reader sees more of how Gabriel came to be at this point in time. Gabriel reflects on parallels between his relationship with Cas and his relationship with the other archangels.

Indianapolis, 11th January, 2016:

 

He hadn’t realised he had a headache until he hauled himself out of the trash pile. He assumed it was a hangover; he mustn’t have been at full strength yet. He tested his wings; they were sore, but unscarred, and strong enough to carry him a short distance.

 

He made it to Indianapolis, where he managed to secure a room in some sleazy motel. He stared mournfully at the building. Rotting and mouldy plaster coated it. Random words were scrawled across it in a multitude of different pens. He wondered whom the people were who left them. The neon sign lighting the parking lot irritated his eyes, so he trudged inside. The woman behind the counter looked like something out of a bad horror movie, or maybe some really fucked up porn. Without a word, she slapped a rusty key on the counter, and pointed down the hall.  

 

If Gabriel was going to be honest, the hotel room was a shithole. However, it housed one beautiful, matching shithole bed, and Gabriel could not have been happier. It felt like landing on clouds compared to the trash heap, and was a hell of a lot warmer than the air outside, but disconcertingly damper. However, it didn’t clear his headache. In fact, the pain continued to worsen. From experience, Gabriel knew that this was not how hangovers were supposed to work. He ate a chocolate bar to help with the pain- chocolate always helped with the pain- but it persisted. About half way through the bar, the pressure in his head amplified, then seemed to pause briefly before exploding with pain and heat. Agony ripped through him, setting his limbs on fire and contorting his body so that no words could come out, just a tortured scream. His mind filled with information; words, feelings, dates, times, conversations, sounds, smells, events... and Lucifer, freed. All of this was followed by a cold, dry darkness.

 

He woke up dazed to see the woman from the front desk standing over him. For a second he wondered when she had gotten so tall, but quickly realised that he had fallen on the floor, and she was in fact of normal size. The room around him blurred, and any sound that reached his ears felt like it was being squeezed through a sponge.

 

This barrier cracked suddenly, and his senses came flooding back.

 

“I told you to keep it down!” The woman screeched, a look of fury on her face. “Now get out of my hotel before I call security! You’re upsetting the other guests.” With a scowl and surprising strength, she promptly dragged him up and threw him out on the street.

 

The air was cold. His head was still spinning from the influx of information. The harsh neon sign above him flickered, turning the night obnoxious shades of hot pink and baby blue, though it had faded to a greener colour. Gabriel’s senses had returned, but his head was still spinning. He wondered if this was how it felt for prophets to receive visions. He decided it probably was.

 

A drop of water fell on his shoulder. He looked at it briefly, then looked to the sky, where more followed. He turned toward the sign. In bright, flowing letters, it declared the name of the motel: Paradise Found.

 

It was pretty damn depressing.

 

\----

  
  


Northern Canada, present day:

 

Gabriel smirked. “Don’t worry about it.”

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “You ask a lot of questions.”

 

Castiel stared at him.

 

He sighed. “Someone hijacked my head. Not sure who. Filled me in on what’s been going on around here while I was out. Weren’t exactly gentle about it either.”

 

Castiel was briefly silent. “How long have you been back? Why didn’t you come sooner?”

 

Gabriel turned to look at him, exasperated.

 

\----

 

Heaven, before Lucifer’s fall:

 

Gabriel sat quietly outside of Heaven’s main hall, his father’s throne room. He could hear crashing and yelling emanating from within its walls. His father and Michael’s voices battling Lucifer’s. He couldn’t make out any words, just the tones of their speech. Raphael had disappeared somewhere, so Gabriel was left alone. The setting was picturesque; the garden was peaceful, the air warm and sweet, with a slight, refreshing breeze. The main hall was also beautiful, as was all of Heaven. It was enormous, white and decorated with all the glistening metals and colourful jewels that God had created. Lucifer told him he liked the ruby, but Gabriel felt a certain attraction to the emerald, though he had been warned against those types of feelings. He’d asked Michael what his favourite was, but he only replied that they were all beautiful, as they had all been created by our Father, but Gabriel found it hard to believe that he didn’t have any preference.

 

Raphael suddenly returned. “Why are you sitting there?” He asked, quite sharply.

 

“Where have you been?”

 

“You should go practice your sword-work. It needs it.”

 

That comment stung a bit, but he was used to his sword-work needing practice.

 

“Why are they fighting? What are they yelling about?”

 

“You ask too many questions.” Raphael scowled.

 

\----

“Relax”, Gabriel replied, “Don’t get your panties in a knot. I only got topside a day or so ago. I had no time to get to you.” It was a lie, but it came as naturally to him as breathing. He often wondered if that was wrong, but tried not to dwell on it. “Besides, I didn’t have the mojo.” That part was only partly a lie.

 

“So you know everything that’s happened up until this point?” Castiel asked.

 

“Not sure.” He replied bluntly.

 

“Why?”

 

Gabriel turned. “If I knew I didn’t know something, then I’d know it, wouldn’t I? So how can I know if I know all there is to know?”

 

The look of confusion on Castiel’s face deepened, but he remained silent. After a period of mutual silence, he asked, “So you had a vision, of sorts?”

 

“I guess, if that’s what you want to call it.” Gabriel didn’t want to talk about this part.

 

“So what was the last thing you saw?”, Castiel insisted. Gabriel _really_ did not want to talk about this part. “Did you see what happened, with Lucifer?”

 

Gabriel stiffened. He remained silent. The contents of the vision had been very clear to him. It didn’t mean he was ready to address it. Castiel’s words hauled into the spotlight memories and feelings that Gabriel would very much have rathered stay buried at a comfortably unhealthy depth.

 

“I’m sorry,” Castiel said. “It was stupid. I didn’t know-”

 

“We should head back to the bunker.” He said, colder than the air in his lungs.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel reflects on the beginning of Lucifer's downfall, and almost meets up with the rest of the gang.

Heaven, before Lucifer’s fall: 

 

Gabriel sat on the edge of a clearing, half-heartedly waving his sword around. The sun had set, and night had fallen over Eden. He still couldn’t decide whether or not he preferred the Garden during daytime, or “under the cover of darkness” as Michael said. The moon was full, and shone down on the Garden like a searchlight. Gabriel had given up on the practice of his sword work very shortly after he had started. He found no entertainment in it, though Michael and Raphael stressed its importance. Gabriel much preferred Lucifer’s lessons. He could perform magic and tricks, learn things in a different way, a freer way, as opposed to the rigid formality of Michael’s teachings. Bored, he stood up, sheathing his sword, and wandered vaguely towards the edge of the Garden, into the trees.

Some animal scuffled in the darkness. Pausing to see what it was, Gabriel focussed on the sound. It seemed quite large, but he was not afraid. There was nothing to be afraid of here, and, as God had told him when he was created, for Gabriel, there was nothing to fear in the entire world. Out of the bush trotted a doe, with her fawn stumbling behind her. It must have been new, for its legs still wobbled as it tried to follow its mother. As quickly as they had come, they had disappeared into the other side of the path.

Turning his gaze, he watched the moonlight trickle through the canopy, painting his skin with patches of silver. He liked the way the light danced on his wings, convoluting the texture of the feathers and allowing the white in them to glow. He truly loved the Garden at night; it was the most peaceful time. Out of the dark he heard a call; it was Lucifer: “Gabriel. I see you there.”

 

Gabriel froze.

 

“Come sit” he continued.

 

Gabriel tread slowly towards him. Lucifer sat beneath the Tree, staring out over the wastelands that surrounded Eden. It was a mystery as to why Lucifer would want to even think about them; they were something that was generally ignored by the other angels, a taboo subject, a symbol of God’s darker side. Gabriel sat beside him.

“You know,” his brother started, “I don’t think I want to be perfect anymore.” His eyes remained fixed on the distant horizon.

 

Gabriel remained silent.

 

\-----

 

Indianapolis, 11th January 2016:

 

Gabriel stared at the sky as the rain began to fall. The droplets pattered down around and on him, trickling down his face, his skin. His hair began to clump into sections, and his clothes dampened. He began to walk. He trudged out of the carpark and away from the incessantly flickering light. It was a busy road, with semi-trailers and buses frequently crawling by, horns and brakes screaming. The noise drowned out his thoughts. A particularly large truck with a particularly obnoxious driver sped past him, churning up a spray of water, soaking him to the bone. He turned into the first form of refuge he could find; a small park, sheltered by several large oaks. A bench sat beneath one; it wasn’t completely dry, but given his current state, the bench was at more risk of getting wet from Gabriel than Gabriel was of getting wet from it.

 

He closed his eyes, and rested his face in his palms. He quickly decided this was a bad idea. Deep in his stomach he felt a cold twinge; all he saw was the cold darkness he had found himself in after his death. He had always wondered what lay in wait for angels when they died, but at the same time had hoped he would never find out. He turned his thoughts away from the memory.

 

Unfortunately he didn’t have a lot of happy thoughts to redirect them to. In fact, he didn’t really have any at the moment. So he considered what to do next. He found his mind wandering back to his stay at the Elysian Fields Motel. He thought about his promise. He thought about what he died for. He realised it was the only good thing he’d ever fought for.

 

\----

Northern Canada, present day:

 

Gabriel stood staring out over the vast expanse of the snow fields. The snow shone brilliantly under the sun. The sky was a perfect shade of pale blue. The only thing that surrounded him was crisp, pure silence. Yet every bone in his body shivered with unease. He took a deep breath in, one of those strange things that celestial beings seem to take up after too long in the company of humans. Despite him not actually needing oxygen, it somewhat cleared his head. But only somewhat. The bright white of the snow burned into his brain and he became mesmerized by it, but at the same time made uncomfortable by its piercing light. Still, the last thing he was going to do at this point was close his eyelids and allow the black to seep back into his mind. So he continued to drink up the light. And he felt afraid; a deep, gnawing, aching fear beginning as a cold knot in his stomach and creeping in icy tendrils up his chest, around his throat. He jolted, as if to stop it reaching his face, intangible as it was.

 

"Gabriel?" Castiel's voice cut into the reverie, but only intensified the panic.

 

Slowly Gabriel moved to face him again. As he turned Castiel collapsed onto the ground.

 

"Are you sure there's nothing you can do about the pain? It really hurts. Please?" He begged.

 

Gabriel watched him beg. He stared into the face of his younger brother, saw him where he knelt, pleading with him to help him, his broken wings hanging limp around him. Gabriel felt his own wings, solid and strong, his feet planted firmly in the snow. He trod slowly, carefully over to Cas. Reaching out, he cupped his face in his palm. Cas leaned into it, closing his eyes, blood dripping from his mouth. Gabriel felt a power grow in him, growing out of his grace and spreading down his arm. With surprising strength, Gabriel reached into Castiel's grace and mind, picking through the wreckage. Pulling back, Castiel fell to the ground, all memories of this meeting wiped clear, just more holes in the skeleton that was left of him.

Without looking down, his older brother fled the scene, barely leaving prints in the snow.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ****PLEASE READ*****  
> Just so everyone knows, I did make a pretty big change to Chapter Four this past week, so if anyone has been following along, please go reread that one! I'm super sorry if it's an inconvenience, but I think it will make a big, positive difference the story in the long run. Thank you so much, and please enjoy! Love you all!

Northern Greenland, present day:

 

Gabriel, the fourth archangel of the Lord’s army, sat dolefully on a tree somewhere in the desolate expanses of Northern Greenland. He wasn’t entirely sure why he chose these sorts of areas, or maybe he was; after all, it was to an area not so different to this that he ran to after leaving Heaven. But Gabriel couldn’t return there, not yet, so he settled for the best imitation he could find. It was a beautiful one, especially tonight. It seemed to Gabriel that the only thing he knew how to do anymore was run. From family, problems, responsibilities, relationships. He was an expert by this stage. He still wasn’t sure why he’d wiped Castiel’s memories. Perhaps it was to shield him, or perhaps to shield Gabriel.

 

The branch he was sitting on was damp and covered in snow, but so was everything here. He cursed the fact that it had to be night in all the places he felt at home in right now. He had tried to compromise with the landscape by keeping his eyes glued to the multi-coloured columns of light dancing above his head. They formed a barrier between him and the dark beyond, and Gabriel did not intend for a second to take his eyes off of them. It was a sight that had been completely new to him the first time he left the Garden; there were no such things there. From the very beginning the sky over this vast white land had captivated him, just as the sky above Eden had.

 

Heaven, before Lucifer’s fall:

 

A younger Gabriel sat on a tree in Heaven, staring up at the sky. He could see all across Eden and into the wastelands beyond. This of course wasn’t the tallest tree in Heaven, that was the Tree of Life, but it was very close, and had the advantage of growing from the roof of his Father’s throne room. Lucifer could no longer be seen under the Tree, though he did not know where he had gone. He could still hear the voices of Michael and his Father battling, with the occasional interruption from Raphael. Their words were inaudible, but they were passionate, especially Michael. He had never known Michael to speak in such a way to Father, but assumed there must be a reason for it; Michael had never spoken to or about God in any way other than good, and something told Gabriel that this was not good, and that it was somehow the beginning of something bigger, something more sinister. For the first time in his life, Gabriel felt a pang of fear in his chest. He didn’t recognise it at the time, only knew it was bad and that he wanted his Father. But he couldn’t go to his Father, nor could he go to Michael, or Raphael or even Lucifer; the latter wouldn’t understand and the former were busy, and would probably tell him to have courage if they weren’t.

 

So Gabriel was left grasping for comfort he couldn’t reach; there was simply no one there to cling to.

 

Northern Greenland, present day:

 

Gabriel may as well still be sitting in that tree in Heaven, as far as he could tell. He was in the dark, with a deep, aching fear gnawing in his gut and an ache at the back of his throat. He wanted someone to go to, to cling to, but reach out as he might, the lights above him couldn’t be touched and the ground beneath was cold, dark and unforgiving. He needed warmth, and familiarity, something he realised he would never find here, nor would he find it if he could return to Scandinavia or Heaven. He realised he simply wanted to go home.

 

Detroit, 11th January, early morning:

 

Gabriel stood still, staring at a broken down and rusty factory. He was surprised it was still here. Any masking spells should have worn off when he died. He supposed no one was interested in buying land in a neighbourhood like this. The gravel crunched underfoot as he drew closer to it. He creaked the front door open, and was greeted with a scene that didn’t fit whatsoever with the building’s exterior. Everything remained in the exact places they’d been left in. Half-eaten food littered the kitchen, and the red silk sheets of his bed remained unmade. He lowered himself onto it. The fabric was stiff and cold, and the mattress had lost its give. It felt as though he was lying on a rock. He stared at his reflection in the mirrors above the bed. They were covered in dust and grime, distorting his image into a broken, twisted mess. So Gabriel closed his eyes. The darkness didn’t help. It fought off the ghastly sight of his reflection and the state of the room, but brought with it new terrors, which combined with the freezing temperature of the surrounding room and furniture, only brought his mind back to the cold, empty state he had been suspended in after his death.

 

His eyes snapped open. Sitting up, he stared at the floor. He wondered what had happened to the latest Dog. He’d had so many over the years he had begun calling them all simply Dog. It saved coming up with complicated names, and gave him some continuity in an otherwise uncertain life. The thought crossed his mind that Dog’s body was likely in here somewhere, but he didn’t get up to look. The last thing he wanted to see right now was his pet’s dead body. Instead he stared at the bed. He remembered with distinct clarity how she looked in it, with one night in particular being brought to his mind.

\-----

“I’ve never celebrated Valentine’s Day before” she drawled.

 

He smirked, in the way he knew she couldn’t resist. “There’s a first time for everything,” he replied.

 

Gabriel stared at her from the side of the bed. Kali lay sprawled across it, sheets tangled and hair artfully tousled. Between the tangles of the sheets her warm, sienna skin peered out, smooth and glowing in the candles (which she had mocked him for). His hand rested on her hip, and began to make its way up. When it reached her shoulder, he leapt into bed, kissing her neck, her face, her hair, her chest. Kali let out a sound that was more beautiful to him than even the sounds of angels singing in Heaven, a bright, tinkling laugh, something rarer than he would like. Hearing her laugh was unabashedly one of Gabriel’s sole goals, and something he’d go through hell to hear again and again.

 

Gabriel ran his hand along the cold sheets, and the memory vanished. He had expected to feel welcome here, but he felt the complete opposite. He didn’t fit here anymore. It was a relic of a past self, an angel masquerading as something he was not. It was immature, and reeked of a loss of self and responsibilities.

 

He couldn’t stay here. As quickly as he had entered the room, he had left. Outside on the lawn, he checked up and down the street; there was no one but a small circle of homeless men further along, huddled around a tiny fire, one of them humming something on a harmonica.

 

With a quick wave of a hand, the entire building went up in flames. The fire tore into the night around it, reaching out for something more to devour. Gabriel stared into the flames. Closing his eyes, he saw the flames that had consumed the air around him as he watched Michael cast Lucifer into Hell. To this day, after all he had been through, it was still the memory that tore at him the most, and it was the image of his brother’s pained faces, their screams, that caused him to run. It had taken him a long time to realise it, but Gabriel had never really had a positive familial relationship, even with all the hordes of angels his Father had created, not one had been a truly good brother to him, nor had he ever been a truly good brother to any of them.

 

He remembered the surprise he had felt when he heard of the exploits of the angel that hung around with the Winchesters, Castiel. Gabriel had not once glanced his way; he was of an average rank, with an average history of accomplishments. Yet he had something in him that the others didn’t. He had a desire for freedom, just as Lucifer and himself had. However, unlike him and Lucifer, Castiel also had a persistent good streak, something that had gotten him into trouble more times than Gabriel probably even knew about.

 

It was at that moment he made his decision. He recalled the faults of both Michael and Lucifer; Lucifer had killed him, and Michael had tried to kill Lucifer. He refused to go down that path. For once in his life, he was going to be a good big brother, and he would experience what it meant to have a younger brother himself. He would give both himself and Castiel something to turn to when the darkness drew close and fear set in. He watched as the sky lit up like the fire before him, and felt the heat of the rising sun on his back.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel manages to track down the Winchesters, while more insight is given into the decline of Heaven leading up to Lucifer's fall.

Present Day:

He’d tracked the Winchesters to Jackson, Wyoming, where they’d been working a low-grade ghost case. He hadn’t realised why they were wasting their efforts on this while Amara and Lucifer were both still on the loose until he saw the state of Castiel; he’d remained largely unconscious the entire time. There was no way he could be neglected for any extended period of time.

 

All his life, Gabriel had been a performer. Whether it be acting the role of a faithful son in front of the hordes of younger angels in Heaven, or playing out the part of Loki, or any of the thousands of other characters he had portrayed throughout his life. He liked to think he knew how to put on a show, and how to make an entrance. With this in mind, Gabriel knew he couldn’t simply rock up to the Men of Letters bunker with no foreshadowing, in ripped and tatty clothes; he needed for them to see him as strong from day one, even if he was in fact still at low power. Of course, to pull this off he needed to conserve what energy he had in whatever possible forms. This of course meant he would actually have to go out and buy something decent to wear- he kind of still looked like he’d slept in a trash pile- something he hadn’t done in decades, if ever. Of course he wouldn’t be paying, but it was still an inconvenience.

 

With this in mind, Gabriel decided to go with something a little classier (go big or go home, right?). He wouldn’t go into too much detail, but the price on the jacket alone would have given the average joe a heart attack on the spot, an experience the desk clerk would probably be able to sympathise with when they did their next inventory check.

 

He was certainly glad for the jacket now though. Leaning against the brick-red wall of the El Rancho Motel, Gabriel shivered against the cold. The Winchesters had managed to make it to Wyoming right in the middle of winter. Snow carpeted every surface, icicles hung precariously from window ledges and roofs and a cold, biting wind battered the El Rancho, and, more importantly, Gabriel. An interesting fact that angels generally tried to keep quiet was that the lower their power level, the more susceptible they were to things that usually only hampered humans, be it cravings- for food, sex, drink, drugs or whatever their vessel’s poison was- emotions, weakened reflexes and senses, or, unfortunately for Gabriel, weather.

 

With the growing cold Gabriel grew weaker, and his disguise began to falter. He’d masked himself with the unassuming visage of an elderly homeless man, a demographic that, in Gabriel’s experience, guaranteed disinterest in the general public, and certainly in the eyes of two hunters with far bigger things on their mind. A violent gust of wind suddenly blew a flurry of snow into Gabriel’s face, forcing him to duck behind the wall to hide the holes in his visage.

 

Heaven, before Lucifer’s fall:

 

It was early morning in the Garden; the grass was still wet with dew, and the light a pale purplish-blue. It was one of those strange mornings where the moon could be seen small and faint in the distance, as though it refused to give way to the Sun. Michael and Raphael were nowhere to be seen; it was just Gabriel and Lucifer, facing each other, swords in hand.

 

“You have to start in a defensive position,” Lucifer called across the sparring field.

 

Gabriel obeyed, giving his best replica of Lucifer’s current stance.

 

“Now,” Lucifer continued, “charge me.”

 

Gabriel shot off across the grass, locking blades with his brother. The still air filled with the clanging of their swords meeting at all angles. Finally, for the first time, Gabriel managed to land a blow, knocking Lucifer to the ground. Gabriel cheered, holding his arms up in the air. Suddenly, his brother dissipated in front of him. In synchrony, Gabriel felt a sharp blow to his back knock him to the ground. As he looked up, he saw his brother, laughing and completely unharmed.

 

“What happened?” Gabriel asked.

 

Lucifer’s laughter died down, “I tricked you, stupid. It’s called innovation.”

 

“It’s cheating,” he said, with indignation in his voice, “Michael and Father say so.”

 

“That’s because Michael and Father don’t know how useful it is. Do you want me to show you?” Lucifer stretched out his hand to Gabriel.

 

Begrudgingly, Gabriel clasped his hand in his, and let his brother pull him up.

 

Present Day:

 

Taking a deep breath, he shook himself off, repaired his disguise and peered as discretely as possible through the window of their room. Sam and Dean were moving around, while Cas lay comatose on one of the beds. Much to Gabriel’s relief, they appeared to be packing. His hopes were confirmed when they began to load up that shitty car. He’d tried earnestly to destroy it on numerous occasions, but Dean was almost as religious about saving it as he was about his brother. He watched with interest as they helped Cas from the room to the backseat, and felt kind of bad for just leaving him alone in the snow. It was true, he could have taken him back to Sam and Dean, but he comforted himself with the knowledge that there genuinely wasn’t anything he could have done to heal him, and judging by the state of Cas, and of himself, there probably still wasn’t.

 

As they reversed out of the car park, Gabriel stretched his wings, preparing to fly, but quickly realised he had no way to hide himself, and speed was his only friend in that regard. He would have liked to fly alongside them, but instead decided to beat them to the bunker and await their arrival there.

 

Thankfully, the weather slightly better in Kansas. There were no rainbows, and the air was still brisk, but the ground was clear of snow and the sky clear of clouds. He sat on the hill above the bunker, and stared out at the pine forest. It and the road were desolate, the trees and asphalt his only witness. He closed his eyes in exhaustion. With this mind, and his wings aching from the journey and cold, he let down his barriers, allowing them to show. As he stretched them out, the wind rustled his feathers, which brushed the trees on either side when fully outstretched. As the sun began to set, the white in them turned brilliant shades of pink, orange and yellow, while the gold highlights glistened. He breathed in the scent of the forest, allowing the sweet scent of the wildflowers to fill his nostrils. His mind wandered with the breeze.

 

\----

 

Heaven, before Lucifer’s fall: 

It never snowed in the Garden, nor did it rain. In fact, the skies never clouded in the slightest; during the day they were a brilliant blue, and at night they glittered with billions of stars and planets, and the moon hung high for almost the entire night, enormous and silver, whilst during dawn and dusk they would fill with hues of pink, purple, red, orange and yellow. Under daylight, Eden’s colours stood out boldly. At night, the entire Garden was silver, and during sunrise and sunset, it glowed a brilliant array of warm yellows and pinks. He always loved the way the ever present greenery of the day could be transformed so suddenly, and how the flowers would appear even brighter than they did during the day.

 

Many angels said that the first thing they noticed when they stepped into the Garden was the Tree, or perhaps God’s throne room. However, the first thing to hit Gabriel, every time, was the overwhelming perfume of the thousands of flowers grown there. It hadn’t taken him long to realise that the others said what they did because they were taught to. Despite this early revelation, it wasn’t for a good amount of time Gabriel worked up the courage to say such things. They seemed trivial to Gabriel now, and the subjects were indeed such. However, it was the principle that was daring; to even think something contrary to his Father’s word was taboo, a lesson he had learned the hard way.

 

One evening Michael had found him wandering among the many flower beds. He was staring at a particularly exotic orchid, now extinct, pressing his nose up against it, breathing in its scent. It was sweet; he preferred the sweeter ones.

 

“What are you doing?” He heard Michael ask.

 

He started, whipping back into a standing position, letting the flower go. “I was admiring the flowers.”

 

Michael looked slightly perplexed, but conceded. “They are very beautiful, aren’t they? Perfect, like everything else here. But why do you study them with such intent?”

 

Gabriel almost told the truth, but decided to hold his tongue, though he felt guilty for it. “I just like them.”

 

Apparently Michael, still slightly perplexed, decided to leave his little brother to his own, somewhat strange, but not really contrary, doings.

 

 -----

  
The Men of Letters Bunker, present day:

Gabriel was started out of his peaceful reverie by the sounds of wheels on asphalt in the distance. He quickly hid his wings again, and mustered all his conserved strength to hide himself as well. Sure enough, moments later the Impala rounded the corner to park below him. A giddy mix of excitement and nerves rose up in his chest. Waiting, he watched them move inside, and ducked quickly in behind them. Looking around, he wasn’t too unimpressed; it was definitely the classiest joint he had seen them live in, though he couldn’t say that meant much. He had heard of the Men of Letters, during their heyday, but after they collapsed, he had lost interest.

Dean helped Cas into a chair at the table in the middle of the room, whose map top caught his attention, though he unfortunately could not say in a positive manner. Cas looked no better; there were dark circles under his eyes, and he trembled simply with the effort of sitting down. Sam and Dean disappeared into the hallway with a promise to return shortly. Gabriel decided it was probably best to wait until they had come back and settled down to reveal himself; he didn’t want to give poor Cas a heart attack when there was no one else around.

So Gabriel sat back and observed. It hurt to think that the last time Gabriel had seen Cas in a state like this he had been the one to cause it. He had been so easy to injure; one hard knock on the head and he was covered in blood. It seemed so strange to him that an angel with such little standing had managed to achieve so much. It occurred to him that Cas had probably achieved more good than Gabriel himself.

Sam and Dean returned with food and laptops in hand. Dean set a plate of chips down in front of Cas.

“C’mon, you need to eat something, buddy,” he said, a surprising tenderness in his tone.

“Thank you,” Cas replied quietly, and began picking at his dinner.

After they were settled, Sam researching, Dean surfing some highly questionable website and Cas almost falling asleep at the table, Gabriel decided to spice things up. He mustered his remaining strength, shook out his wings, and began to flicker the lights. A wind picked up, their computers started to falter and an old radio on the counter switched on to static.

He kind of wished he could muster some thunder, but this would have to do. With a final flash of the lights, he made himself visible, a smile toying at his lips.

On cue, he quipped, “Sammy, I’m home.”

And no, he wasn’t afraid to reuse openers.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel finally actually sits down and talks to the Winchesters. The story of what happened in the rest of the week before meeting up with the brothers is related. More insight is given into Gabriel's time in Heaven as an angel and with Kali. Also, pirate Gabriel.

The Men of Letters Bunker, present day:

All three stared dumbly back at him, eyes wide and jaws dropped. The silence was so thick you could hear a pin drop. Gabriel decided to break it, delicately, of course.

 

“What, you’re just going to stare at me? I mean I am a work of art, but still, it’s getting kind of weird.”

 

“Wh-what?” Sam stammered. All three stared around at each other in shock. You’d think they would be used to people coming back all the time by now, but it took a few more moments of staggered noises of confusion before any of them managed to come out with anything coherent.

 

“Are you…actually…alive?” Dean was the first to make a reasonable attempt at an articulated sentence.

 

“I am.” He figured it was best to take baby steps here.

 

“You’re real? And… here?” Sam chirped up.

 

“In the flesh,” Gabriel wriggled his eyebrows.

 

This seemed to disturb them; they shifted their positions in their seats awkwardly, averting their eyes to the far less attractive, in Gabriel’s opinion, map table.

 

“So…” Dean continued insightfully.

 

“So..?” Gabriel replied.

 

“So are you staying?” Sam finished for his brother.

 

That was a question he hadn’t been asked in a long time, or asked in equally as long. He never stayed, nor did anyone else.

 

Nicobar Islands, 1992:

The humidity of the evening surrounded them as they lay on the bed. Gabriel relished the feeling of her in his arms, her skin hot against his. He listened to the hum of the insects outside, mixed with the gentle swaying of palm fronds and the crashing of the surf on the beach as the tide rose. The room was small, but richly decorated. Dominating it was the bed they lay in, huge, hung with embroidered curtains and covered with deep red sheets. Luxurious fabrics and bold paintings draped the walls, while a shrine adorned with flowers, precious metals, jewels and spices that seemed exotic to him, but smelt like home to her, was set against the far wall. Most overpowering was the smell of jasmine-scented incense; it was a smell he’d come to associate with his visits here.

 

“Why do you always burn this incense?” He asked, quietly, so as not to disturb the peace.

 

“It’s different. I like it.”

 

They both fell silent.

 

Before he could close his eyes again, she shifted, drawing away from him to the edge of the bed. He watched her as she rose, with ritual beauty, retrieving her clothing from where it had fallen. She was beautiful, but he knew she didn’t like that stuff, so he kept it to himself. Her skin glowed in the orange light, as though engulfed in flames. It was these flames that had engulfed Gabriel the first time he had touched her. He remembered the way he had felt as he uncovered her skin, and how lost he had felt as it was covered back up again. She had consumed him, but in her wake she had left him a new person.

 

His eyes followed her movements as she dressed. Even this she made graceful.

 

“Are you staying?” He asked.

 

She looked back at him over her shoulder, and slowly, silently, she left. He remained for a few moments more, drinking in her smell, but after one last, deep breath, he departed himself.

 

Men of Letters Bunker, present day:

“Hello?” Dean broke through his reverie. “Are you staying?”

 

It took Gabriel a few moments to respond. “Yeah, yeah I’m staying.”

 

None of them looked convinced. Dean looked like he didn’t trust him. Sam was staring intensely at the table, and Cas just looked confused. He wondered briefly if he hadn’t wiped his memories properly, and reminded himself to try and make sure sometime.

 

“I need a drink,” Dean announced.

 

“That is the best idea I’ve heard all day,” Sam replied.

 

“I concur,” Cas chipped in.

 

As Dean left to retrieve said drink, Gabriel sat himself down at the table across from Cas; he would have liked to sit opposite Sam- his shoulders looked pretty damn good in that shirt- but that decision probably wouldn’t have been popular with Dean. Sam continued to stare at the table, while Cas glared across it at Gabriel with a textbook frown on his face. Sometimes Gabriel wondered if Cas had learned his emotions off of emojis, but thought it best not to comment. He also wondered if the offer of a drink extended to himself.

 

His question was answered when Dean returned with only three glasses and a bottle of whiskey, which to Gabriel seemed a bit rude. With that being said, Dean probably considered it rude to kill someone thousands of times in a row. As Dean poured, Sam finally shifted. Cas, on the other hand, continued to glare. Gabriel smiled cheerily back at all three.

 

“Why are you so happy?” Castiel snapped.

 

Gabriel did his best to look affronted. “What, I’m not allowed to be happy? I’m alive aren’t I?”

 

“Yeah, about that, what happened to you?” Dean asked.

 

“Well, after you got Kali out Lucifer shivved me with my own sword. I woke up in a field of kale. Pretty embarrassing stuff,” he replied.

 

“Well how long have you been back?” Dean huffed as he sat. Gabriel wasn’t quite sure how he felt about Dean. Honestly, he kind of bugged him. But he had to give him credit for managing to stay alive this long. Probably deserved something for saving the world those few times, though Gabriel didn’t plan on praising him _too_ much, unless of course grovelling was required.

 

“Twenty-four hours.”

 

None of them looked particularly convinced. He couldn’t lie, the mistrust stung a little. But that was a grave he’d dug himself. Of course it didn’t matter; they needed him, and every person in the room knew it. Sam pouted in the corner, and the other two looked kind of constipated. He decided to break the silence.

 

“Look, believe me, or don’t. I died. But I’m back, and I think you know how much you need me, what with my unparalleled expertise,” He added. They didn’t appreciate the self-confidence, and he was answered with a collective sigh.  

 

Castiel looked thoughtful. “One day?” he asked.

 

“One day,” Gabriel confirmed.

 

Of course, this was a lie. Yes, Gabriel had been ready to be a good big brother, and the torching of his house would have been a nice, dramatic way to enter into this state of mind. However, reality was a little more complicated than was narratively ideal.

 

Detroit, 11th of January:

 

As he walked away from the burning wreck that was his house, he heard the exclamations of the homeless men behind him. The sound of one praying filled his ears. His pace quickened, and his breath plumed out from his nostrils in the cold winter air. When he was out of ear shot, he began to plan. Lucifer was out of the box, but still residing in Cas’s body. There was no way he could fix that on his own., but he knew he didn’t have long; Jimmy was a strong vessel, but he could not hold both for much longer. He needed to find the Winchesters. Unfortunately, with that writing still on their ribs this wasn’t an easy thing to do; he couldn’t just zap to their approximate location with a flick of his wrist. The easiest way, he concluded, would be a rather simple location spell.

 

Much like the Winchesters, Gabriel had himself a bunker, albeit a lot smaller than the Men of Letters bunker, and in a far more remote and secret location; not even Kali knew about this one. Gabriel’s bunker was located deep in the Central African jungle, the only person to have ever seen it being yours truly. It was a long way away, and would test his still tired wings, but it was safe, and a way forward.

 

It was late morning, with the sun high in the sky, but barely any light penetrated the thick canopy. Gabriel was surrounded by the sounds of the rainforest; the air hummed with the calls of birds and insects, while some ungulate cried in the distance. The bunker had become overgrown in the years since he had been gone; it always surprised him how ferociously nature could overtake man-made, or in this case angel-made, structures in such short periods of time. Still, the door quickly gave under his strength, giving out a high-pitched squeal as it opened, sending nearby birds bursting into the sky.

 

The bunker was pitch black as he descended into it. He tried the main light, but was disappointed. After a few moments of fumbling around he managed to locate a torch, which, thankfully, emitted a dim yet sufficient beam of light. He passed it over the space, illuminating things he hadn’t seen in over five years; among the treasures, rare jewellery, old books, ancient artefacts, old candy wrappers, and, towards the back, a safe. He stumbled through the clutter, coming to rest on his knees before it. He tried the lock-rusted shut. So he decided to take a more violent approach.

 

He stood back, and charged the thing, kicking the lock hard enough to break it open. Still, the door was stubborn, but after a few good pulls it gave. He peered into it, inside a collection of spells, photos and other miscellaneous papers and trinkets. Sifting through them, he managed with relative ease to locate the sheet he wanted. Carefully, he held it up to the light, a smile on his face; things were finally going somewhere.

 

Haiti, 1715:

 

It was a humid night. Crickets chirped in the bush, their song mixing with the soft hush of the waves lapping at the shore and the bawdy music coming from the tavern nearby. Gabriel stood away from the hubbub, absent-mindedly drawing circles in the sand as he waited for her current client to finish. Angry male voices emanated from inside, but her clear, calm tones cut through them. After a few more seconds of shouting, the man stumbled out of the hut, pushing past Gabriel in frustration. His breath stank of cheap liquor and tobacco.

 

He looked up as she appeared in the doorway, beckoning him with a single, long finger. Neither of them said a word as he entered. Wind chimes and trinkets hung from the ceiling, gently singing as he brushed past them. She managed not to disturb a single one. As she sat, she locked eyes with him in an intense but welcoming gaze.

 

After a moment, she broke the silence with a simple “So.”

 

Gabriel leaned in, resting his hands on the desk in front of her. “I need something.” He waited for a response, but was given none but her continual stare.

 

“A spell,” he continued. She tilted her head upwards, but remained silent. He studied her. Her skin was a deep mahogany, painted with layers of meandering tattooed lines, forming a network of organic forms. Her eyes were as deep of a brown as her skin, and her hair even darker than both. He found his gaze drifting, wandering over the plump shape of her lips, down towards the soft curves of her breasts, her slender waist.

 

“I need to find someone. Someone not so easy to find.”

 

Her mouth stretched into a sly smile. She shook her head playfully, and let out a small chuckle. “That will cost you.”

 

Gabriel raised an eyebrow, allowing a smile to touch his own lips. He moved slowly around the desk. Her eyes began to move from his face downwards, studying the lines of his body underneath his clothing. Coming to a stop before her, he leant against the desk. For a few moments, he remained silent and still, letting her look him over. After she had gotten her share of eye candy, he began to slowly lean forward over her where she sat. His hands came to a rest either side of her head on the back of the chair, and he allowed his hair, longer and shaggier back then, reaching to just above his shoulders, to brush her cheek. He touched his cheek to hers, and whispered in her ear, “And what, exactly, would that cost me?” Her breath had become shaky, and her skin burned under his. His lips moved down her neck, planting kisses as he went, reaching her collarbone, cleavage and breasts.

 

Showtime. With as much suddenness as he could muster, he swept her up. He buried his face in her chest as she wrapped her legs around his hips, and walked them both through the shell curtain behind her desk into her sleeping quarters. She’d already started to undo his belt, and he decided to pull out one of his more popular moves. Moving his mouth down form her breasts, he began to unpick the clasps of her corset with his teeth, relishing the feel of her spilling out onto his face as he did. She reached down, moving her hand along his shaft until it hardened. Fortunately for both, underwear wasn’t the fashion in those days, and he was able to slip into her immediately. She gasped as he entered, and he moaned with the pleasure of having her warm tightness surround him. The bed squealed as they collapsed onto it, the force of their landing pushing him even deeper into her. They both sighed as they settled into the love-making, and fell further into their passion to the sounds of the busy town outside.

 

\----

 

When Gabriel awoke it was morning, and the pale sun was filtering in through the window, dappled by the leaves of the palm trees outside. Beside him, the bed was cold and empty, but the air around him was already humid. He noticed an odd pain in his wing as he stood, but brushed it off; it had been a pretty hectic night. As quietly and quickly as he could, he gathered his clothes, pulling on the bare basics and bundling the rest in his arms, and on his way out, surreptitiously snatched the spell off of her desk.

 

12th of January, Central Africa:

 

Gabriel scanned the spell briefly, noting the ingredients and rough structure. It was a pretty easy, dump-everything-in-at-once method, with pretty standard ingredients; some he already had, for example, ground ox-bone, but most he would have to retrieve. He decided to start with one of the easiest, which ironically, brought him back to Haiti. Knowing that witch, this would be a deliberate blow for “mixing up” her payment. With a flap of his wings, he stood again on a beach, on the same island but not in the same location; that was too risky. Realistically, she was probably dead by now- witches usually didn’t live that long- but it was better safe than sorry; another charming attribute many witches seemed to share was the ability to hold grudges. He happened to notice that Haiti was, despite its witches, far more pleasant than the Walmart he had just had to visit to pick some salt and a cheap map; his shoulders and hair were still drenched with sleet and rain.

 

Around him, the beach was peppered with patches of wild Hibiscus bushes, filled with profuse blooms of a multitude of colours. Rather pathetically, Gabriel began scouring the sand for flowers that had fallen and dried in the sun. He had to work quickly; the flowers had to have been harvested during sunset, and the light was fading fast. Fortunately, the weather had clearly been obscenely hot recently, and such specimens were in abundance. He snatched up a particularly dehydrated one, which he believed to have once been pink, and slipped it gently into the inside pocket of his jacket. One down, fuck knows how many to go.

 

Taking a brief look around, Gabriel paused. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, allowing the scent of the flowers and surf to mingle on his palette. Looking down, he began to admire a particularly beautiful, bright crimson bloom. He reached out to touch it, running his fingers along its smooth petals, and kneeling down, breathed in its sweet scent even more deeply.

 

Heaven, before Lucifer’s fall: 

 

Again Gabriel sat in the Garden, enjoying the flowers, this time during daylight. The Garden buzzed with life, but the flower beds were relatively quiet. This time Gabriel was admiring a particularly beautiful rose; it was a solid crimson, and had one of the sweetest scents in the entirety of Eden. It was Raphael who found him this time.

 

“What are you doing here again? Michael told me you were here before.”

 

“The flowers smell so nice.” He hesitated before adding the next part, “I think I like the flowers best out of all Father’s creations.”

 

Raphael puffed up with indignation. “All God’s work is equal and sacred, but you must always remember that at this point, the Tree -”

 

“-is the crown achievement of the Garden, I know.”

 

“And is vital in the carrying out of His Plan.” Raphael finished sharply.

 

“What plan?” Gabriel queried.

 

“You’re too young for that. Do not be so insolent or I will personally ensure Father hears of this. Go and practice your sword-work.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

Scottish Highlands, 13th of January:

 

As the cold rain beat down upon him, it occurred to Gabriel it probably would have been easier to locate a lamb that didn’t live in a country stuck in a perpetual state of dampness, but there was no going back now. He had been waiting, perched on a fence post, for approximately three hours now, and wasn’t about to give up. If he did, it would mean he had spent three hours sitting in the rain watching sheep for absolutely naught. The wind continued to bite, sending water droplets flying in ever-changing directions. Of course it would have been perfectly easy to simply grab the first lamb that came his way, but Gabriel was determined to harvest this blood in the most ethical way possible, and pick the one that had the least, or preferably no, chance of survival. Theoretically, he could go and find pre-packaged lamb’s blood at a butcher somewhere, but fresh ingredients produced a stronger spell, and he needed all the strength he could get when it came to the Winchesters; he had no clue whether or not they still had those angel scratchings on their ribs, nor if they had other forms of warding where they were living, in which case, the spell would have to be a little more potent than it would for a regular human.

 

As dusk began to fall, the flock moved slowly down the field to the only shelter, that of some densely canopied trees in the corner of the paddock. In their wake, they left a small, white bundle of, very damp, wool. He had spotted this one earlier; it had been having difficulty the entire day in keeping up with its sibling and mother, and hadn’t drunk a drop of milk. As the flock continued to drift away, it struggled once again to rise, but its legs were weak, the air cold and the grass slippery, and its wobbly legs gave out. It called for its mother, but she had moved on with the rest of the flock. He approached it as quietly and slowly as he could, so as not to scare it. As he neared, it noticed him, and began to struggle towards him. Kneeling next to it, he stroked his damp head in order to calm it down. He took it gently into his arms, and noted that its umbilical cord was still attached and wet; it can’t have been more than a day old. He also noticed why it was having such difficult standing; the thing’s hind legs were bent, deformed into crooked stumps. Gabriel pitied it, but also felt a bit better about killing it; it would have been dead in hours regardless, with no shelter, warmth or food. A knife to the throat was kinder than a death out here.

 

Looking around, there was no available shelter within walking distance, but he noticed a barn in the distance, to which he swiftly flew.

 

The barn was empty, bar a few stacks of old farm equipment. Somehow, the overhead light was still working, for which he may have said a little prayer of thanks; old habits die hard. He set the lamb down gently on a crate, and placed a Gaslamp next to it to warm it and give it a little light. Setting an old bowl that he had brought from his bunker, stained with the remains of hundreds of different concoctions, down beside the crate, and pulled his sword from its sheath.

 

He pressed the lamb gently to hold it still, and put the blade to its throat.

 

Israel, 1st Century A.D.:

 

Gabriel stood quietly beside his brothers, observing the goings-on below from the peak of a nearby hill. He watched as a human male carried a screaming lamb away from its flock, knife in hand.

 

“What is he doing?” He asked.

 

“He is sacrificing it to our Father, as a show of faith and gratefulness,” Michael replied. “It is important for you to learn how and why humans pay their homage to Him. This is an important lesson.”

 

Gabriel looked over to Michael and Raphael; they remained stoic. However, as the man brought the knife down, he could swear he saw _something_ in Raphael’s eyes, although he covered it up as quickly as it had appeared. Gabriel tried to maintain the same fortitude, but found it more difficult than he had though it would be. Internally, he was cringing. He couldn’t quite understand why God would go to all the effort he had to create two things so beautiful and complex, only to end the life of one early by the hand of the other. He also really hoped God hadn’t heard his misgivings, but He usually did.

 

He watched, mesmerised, as the blood dripped slowly down the sides of the altar.

Scottish Highlands, 13th of January:

 

As Gabriel came back to the present, he noticed the lamb wheezing under his hands; he had been squeezing too tight, and the poor thing was struggling for air. Quickly, he gathered himself and loosened his grip briefly, giving it one more breath of fresh air. It was a good breath, filled with the scent of earth after rain and the warmth of the gaslight beside it. As swiftly as he could, he brought the knife down across its throat, aiming the stream of blood into the bowl. The stray droplets that landed on his skin felt like they had come straight out of a furnace.

 

14th of January, Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, Scotland: 

 

Historically, the worst ingredient to harvest had been virgin’s blood. For a start, it was incredibly difficult to tell whether or not an adult was a virgin without straight-up asking, which was a bit weird. Therefore, the best candidates were usually children and babies. Fortunately, the introduction of blood donation made it a lot easier to locate it ethically, and Gabriel had become quite experienced in figuring out what was virgin’s blood and what wasn’t by its smell and texture; it was slightly smoother and more potent than regular blood. He had decided on sourcing his blood from Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, Scotland; it was close, and was a teaching hospital, which meant it would likely be packed to the ceiling with the stuff.

 

Making sure to disable the CCTV cameras, he slipped into the storage room as discretely as possible. He inspected a few bags, eventually coming across a bag that he was pretty certain was what he needed. It was a nice blood type too, O-positive; believe it or not, blood type made a slight difference to the quality of the outcome of the spell, with the aforementioned type being the most highly prized.

 

Slipping the bag surreptitiously inside his jacket, Gabriel wandered nonchalantly into the hall and headed for the doors. He suddenly heard a faint squeaking sound coming from a door to his right, and was intercepted by a small girl pulling a pole loaded with fluids behind her. The pole had to have been twice the size of her, and her head was wrapped up in a fleece beanie topped with ears that appeared to simulate those of a lamb. She looked up at Gabriel with two big, bright blue eyes and a curious tilt to her head. Her skin was paler than any he had seen in a long time, and translucent enough to reveal the dark circles under her eyes and the veins in her arms and neck.

 

“Are you a doctor?” Her voice rang out in the empty corridor, surprisingly loud given her physical appearance.

 

He wasn’t entirely sure why, but his body seemingly decided, without consulting his head, to squat down in front of her and reply with, “Yes. As a matter of fact, I am.”

 

“I don’t feel well,” she spoke through a rough cough.

 

“Oh, well that’s no good at all,” he replied, trying his best to sound consoling. She sniffled in response.

 

Gabriel assessed his strength. Healing himself, an archangel, was one thing, but a small human another. The thought that it might set his healing back a few days didn’t seem to bother him. He reached out slowly, so as not to scare her, and rested a gentle hand against her forehead.

 

“Do I have a fever?”

 

Her skin felt papery beneath his hand; it felt as though he would tear it with one wrong move. He never ceased to be amazed at what fragile creatures humans were.

 

“No,” he said, as quietly as possible, “Not anymore.”

 

Heaven, 1st Century A.C.E.:

Just as Gabriel had expected, his Father had heard the entirety of his thoughts on the sacrifice of animals in His name. Gabriel now stood before His throne, feeling small in the cavernous room.

 

“Gabriel,” He boomed. A period of silence followed; God used a great many of these in most conversations He was involved in. It definitely had an impact, and, as usual, Gabriel was left feeling as though he needed to fill the silence, but with what he wasn’t sure.

 

“Dissidence is a very dangerous thing. You of all people should know that,” He continued.

 

“Yes, Father,” Gabriel said, in barely more than a whisper.

 

“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection into eternal life.” That was one of God’s favourite quotes, as Gabriel had come to realise over the years. Gabriel wanted to ask how the lamb he had seen sacrificed was finding its eternal life, but he held his tongue.

 

Instead he said, “It was just so young. So innocent.”

 

“Exactly,” God replied. “What are a few years? It has experienced life, and earth, tasted its mothers’ milk and green grass and any number of other plants, plants I put there for it to enjoy. And now, it will die, and leave these things behind. It will remain in a state of purity and innocence for eternity, never having to fear the taint of sin adulthood often brings. Another will now take its place, as is the way of things.”

 

Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, Scotland, 14th of January 2016:

 

Gabriel had almost believed that when he was young, and innocent as that lamb had been. Residing in Heaven for his entire life, he had thought he had experienced everything good. It hadn’t occurred to him until later in life, once he was free of Heaven, that experiencing life’s sins could be just as sweet as its virtues. Everything on Earth would die, lamb or human. But one needed far more than a few days to enjoy the time one had.

 

He watched as the little girl tottered away from him, still pulling her cumbersome pole, and thought of all she would live to discover; she would move from the arms of her mother to the those of a lover, would taste more food and drink than hospital jelly and milk, would hear the stories of a million different voices. She would feel grief and broken bones, heartbreak and loss, and the joy and adventure that accompany them.

 

He stood, alone now in the dim corridor, looked back once in her direction, listened as the squeaks of her pole faded, and disappeared from her life forever.

 


	9. Chapter 9

Somewhere near Muncie, Indiana, 16th of January:

 

As if by some cruel, cosmic joke, Gabriel found himself, once again, scrambling around in the very same kale field he had crawled out of no more than a week ago in the middle of the night. It happened to be a particularly cold one. Why was he rummaging through a kale field? This was a question he had been asking himself for the past few hours. Somewhere, underneath this field lay the remains of the Elysian Fields Hotel, and within them, two vials of Sam and Dean Winchester’s blood, the last ingredient needed for the location spell.

 

He had been here since the morning previous, and his fingers by this point were cached in fertiliser and mud; he reeked with the smell of both, and of the dreaded plant beneath his feet. He had made a point not to be particularly careful with the state he left them in. To make it worse, his head had been aching for about three hours now. He sincerely hoped that it was not another vision- the other one had made his life a lot more complicated- but at the same time he knew that it would probably give him a much simpler solution to his problems than his current approach.

 

The spell had to be conducted at midnight, which had long since passed; he would need to wait until tomorrow, even if he could find the damn vials before then, but there was no guarantee there. Eventually Gabriel decided to simply plonk himself down in a random spot and take a well-deserved break. His power level was even lower again than it had been a few days ago, and the continued exposure to the elements was taking its toll; he wasn’t even strong enough to conjure up some food, or, more preferably, some vodka. He tried to keep the thought of how his body would take performing the spell out of his mind. The pain began to intensify, and his stomach began to turn. Gabriel suddenly lurched forward, and any food that had been in his stomach emptied onto the ground, but the nausea didn’t fade. Even more suddenly than last time, a blast of pain rain through his body. It was over far quicker, but the pain was far worse. Exhausted, ears ringing, Gabriel lay heaving on the ground, the image of his younger brother lying motionless in a vast expanse of snow playing over in his mind on repeat.

 

 

Northern Greenland, 17th of January, 2016:

 

The revelation had hit him harder than a steam roller. It was something he had always yearned for, something he thought he had had at various points in his life, but whatever situation he was in never quite felt right. He didn’t belong in Heaven. Nor did he belong with Lucifer, or with the pagans. All his life, he had never found a comfortable position. As he fingered the small feather in his hand, he realised he might actually have a shot at something close. He held on to it like a life-line; screw digging around in mud for hours for some crappy old vials that may or may not even be there. In his palm was the only piece of DNA he’d ever need.

 

 

Central Africa, present day: 

 

The moon hung high and heavy above him, its pale light filtering down through the dense canopy. Gabriel perched on the hill above his bunker, surrounded by the ingredients he had suffered through fucks-knows-what for. He was thankful it was one of those everything-in-at-once deals, because he honestly did not believe his brain could handle anything more complicated right now. He had lain out the map on the ground, weighted down with stones. He made sure the moonlight hit it properly, and poured the cocktail he had just mixed in a steady stream above it. For a few moments, the liquid simply sat there; a pang of fear went through him at the thought that he had gotten bad ingredients, but sure enough, after a small wait, the mix began to shift. It danced across the page, bouncing and flowing in all directions, until focussing on one tiny point in the United States of America.

 

“Jackson,” he muttered to himself, “here I come.”

 

Men of Letters Bunker, present day:

 

Dean rose slowly from his seat, and in an uncharacteristically measured tone, asked Castiel and Sam to talk to him in the library. Again, a blatant display of rudeness on Team Free Will’s part. They moved to the far end of the library, and spoke in hushed tones. Gabriel could make out their general moods, and hear snippets of conversation. It was childish, but Gabriel could not help but feel a twinge of loneliness, as though he were the youngest archangel again, ear by the door, and always on the wrong side of it.

 

Heaven, before Lucifer’s Fall:

 

Gabriel sat in the gardens atop the throne room, watching as his elder brothers filed in behind their Father. All three’s eyebrows were knitted together, and Michael and Lucifer looked to be clenching their jaws as strongly as was angelically possible. The great doors slammed shut behind them. Not long after, the cacophony of voices that Gabriel was becoming used to hearing, began again. He stared down at his fingers. They were stained green from picking at the grass at his feet, and his nails were lined with sap.

 

Abruptly, he stood up, letting the debris in his hands fall to the ground. Wandering vaguely off, Gabriel considered trying to distract himself again, with sword-work or other such practices. Recently however, these things had failed to keep his mind occupied, largely due to the increasing severity of the fights. Almost every day in the past two weeks Lucifer had been called into his Father’s throne room for one reason or another, though the two main culprits seemed to be insolence and disruption of the peace. Michael had been a frequent guest as well, with Raphael also being included, but not with as much frequency. Gabriel had been invited in with even less frequency, with an average of zero summons. He knew very well how immature it was, but could not help but feel left out in some way. Of being invited into these meetings whilst they were actually occurring Gabriel felt little desire for, but what truly upset him was that absolutely no one, not his Father or brothers, considered him important enough to keep him up to date on the happenings. The only word he received on the matter were stern warnings to stay away from Lucifer, and do not, under any circumstance, allow him to corrupt or tempt you with his new, dangerous, and somewhat radical ideas.

 

It is important to note that within the chaos that was currently afflicting the Garden, Gabriel’s movements and doings had been largely overlooked. The freedom this gave him to explore was the only beneficial consequence of this whole debacle he could see, and had given him an entirely new hobby to distract himself with. The Garden was enormous, filled with eccentricities and secrets. It also had allowed him to invite himself into one of the highly secret meetings God had with his brothers. Gabriel had always wondered how and why the throne room smelled of fresh flowers, though none could be seen, only sterile greenery, jewels and carvings. His answer came when he discovered small openings, possibly vents, situated along the top of the room, which, while not allowing him visual or physical access, did allow him to listen in on their conversations.

 

He heard Lucifer crying out below:

 

“It can’t work! It’s ludicrous, flawed, unnecessary.”

 

“It is perfection,” Michael rebutted.

 

“It is an abomination,” Lucifer raised his voice in turn.

 

“It shall not be questioned,” God thundered.

 

The room fell silent. He could feel the friction in the air. Suddenly Gabriel felt uncomfortable, the kind of discomfort he had experienced earlier, sitting in the tree not far from him. Again, he wanted someone, his Father or his brothers, but, again, he was alone.

 

The next words Lucifer spoke split the air like lightning, “And why is that exactly?”

 

At this Gabriel sprang back from the vent; he didn’t want to hear anymore. It was only five words, but they were words he had been created and raised to fear. He had never been sure why he feared them. Should someone ask him, he would have said he feared them as they would incur God’s wrath, which was partly true. However, when Lucifer spoke these words, it was like he wasn’t creating them so much as releasing them, and not simply from his own mind, but Gabriel’s, and in that moment of release, Gabriel realised he feared these words because ever since he could remember, they were the only ones he had ever wanted to say.

 

The Men of Letters Bunker, present day:

 

After a good 10 minutes of increasingly animated conversation, Gabriel decided to help himself to the whiskey in front of him. He’d never been a huge whiskey fan, but it was booze and he wasn’t feeling particularly picky. Dean was, as usual, the loudest of all three, and had been spouting the same shit he always had about working with monsters. Gabriel would have liked to point out that Dean had worked with his fair share, *cough* Crowley *cough*, but decided it probably wouldn’t do a lot for his case. Cas appeared to be on Dean’s side, but was speaking with far more politesse. Sam, however, while calm, appeared to be arguing against them, which meant he was arguing in Gabriel’s favour. However long they argued, Gabriel wasn’t worried; they needed him and they knew it.

 

Abruptly, out of the general hum of their conversation sprang one line, out of Dean’s mouth, that brought silence down on all three.

 

“What is it with you and working with monsters?!”

 

A hush fell.

 

“Wait,” Dean continued, “I’m sorry, I didn’t-.” Sam interrupted him by storming from the room without another word.

 

After he had disappeared down the hall, Dean collapsed into the bookcase, leaning his head against his arm. Cas gently placed a hand on his shoulder, and flinched when Dean decided to take his anger out on said bookcase and its resident books, punching a hole through the shelf and flinging about half a dozen paperbacks around the room, climaxing with a swift exit. Castiel looked exhausted. After a lengthy pause, he lowered himself gingerly into a chair. Gabriel stood, picked up the whiskey and a glass, and sat himself down at the opposite end of the table. In one smooth move, he slid the bottle and glass down the table to rest in front of his younger brother, then sat back, and closed his eyes. It would be a long, cold night ahead, their only companion the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, ticking methodically away to itself.   


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang talk business. Gabriel retraces some steps in his relationship with Kali, while he reminisces on the beginning of Lucifer's fall.

 

As Gabriel sat at the table, and morning grew near, his mind wandered. He remembered the point where everything seemed to fall apart in his life. God had brought him into His throne room, shortly after Gabriel had eavesdropped on His latest conversation with his older brothers. He had wondered if God knew, and decided He probably did, but He didn’t say anything about it. He delivered an uncharacteristic display of affection, coming forward and resting a strong hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. He looked into His eyes, and he saw concern. His expression was always tinged with sadness.

 

Gabriel had expected another meaningful speech, but was greeted only with a blunt message warning him against Lucifer. He didn’t understand at the time, but he felt that cold tightness rise in his chest once again, and still, he had no idea what it was.  

 

He was broken out of his reverie as a clatter came from the kitchen; one of the brothers clashing around in the dishes. Cas remained with his head on the table. He decided he would leave him sleep; he needed it. Gabriel rose quietly and made his way down the hall. Rounding the corner, he saw Sam and Dean. Sam sat at the bench, spooning cereal into his mouth, while Dean poured coffee for both of them and fried himself some bacon. The bacon and coffee smelled really good, but again, he didn’t see any coming his way. Joining Sam at the kitchen bench, he began to rock gently on his chair.

 

“You know,” Dean said, “If you keep rocking like that you’re gonna fall. I mean it would be hilarious, but I am way to tired to be able to handle loud noises.

 

Gabriel leant forward, placing his arms on the table.

 

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I not allowed my elbows on the table either?” He responded with as much sarcasm as he could muster. Dean gave him a pretty damn good death stare; he could be very dramatic for someone who pretended to be so macho. Sam seemed oblivious; his eyes were still half closed. Gabriel felt another pang in his stomach, a good one this time, and found himself smiling at the sight.

 

As they groggily downed their breakfast, they began to perk up. At that moment, Cas stumbled in.

 

“Hey, sleeping beauty,” Dean called out, “how’re you feeling?”

 

Cas made a small noise, and plonked himself down in the seat across from Dean. Personally, Gabriel thought he looked a little better than he had a few days ago, but the improvement was miniscule. He really needed to find a way to fix him. Unfortunately to do that he would have to fix himself, a task that he had absolutely no idea how to carry out.  

 

“Wow, you look like shit,” Dean continued with his usual level of affectionate insult. Cas made another, slightly louder, noise.

 

They sat through a period of awkward silence while the Winchesters finished eating. Gabriel decided to break the ice.

 

“Sooo…” he started.

 

There was a pause. Sam sighed. “So?”

 

“Am I staying?” Gabriel asked, raising an eyebrow, “Or do we still not work with monsters?” He gave Dean a very pointed look. Dean looked resentful. Sam looked a little sad.

 

Dean shovelling the rest of his bacon into his mouth, downed the rest of his coffee, and promptly stood up. “Right,” he announced, making a sweeping gesture with his hands, “Bat cave, now.” He moved around to help Cas out. Sam and Gabriel followed. There was a brief moment of silence while Dean, judging from the constipated look on his face, thought.

 

Apparently Dean thought too slow, as it was Sam who spoke next.

 

“Ok let’s cut to the chase. Can you kill Her?” He held back a smile. Clearly he’d managed to promote his self-image more than he had thought.

 

“Amara?” Gabriel responded. “Maybe.” It was a lie. Of course he couldn’t.

 

“What does that mean?” Sam’s brow furrowed. It was kind of cute, he had to admit.

 

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “It’s possible. But it won’t exactly be a walk in the park. We’ll need help.” Gabriel wasn’t quite sure what help it was that he was referring to, but he knew he needed it.

 

“Who put Her away in the first place?” Castiel questioned. “Was it God?”

 

He resisted the urge to lie, an instinct, ironically, taught to him by his Father on the subject. He tilted his head back, fixing his eyes on the tiled ceiling. All the propaganda he’d been raised to spout came to the top of his tongue. It came as a strange surprise to him that this was not a place he needed to lie. Pushing back this natural urge, Gabriel, for once in his life, told the truth. “It was Lucifer.”

 

“Lucifer did it?” Castiel asked. He seemed shocked.

 

“Yup.” He replied.

 

“Could he do it again?” Sam questioned. Gabriel found it interesting, how easily those two could slip into making deals with the Devil, even after everything they’d been through.

 

Gabriel began to speak, but was interrupted by the older one. “On that note, who split Cas and the Devil? Was it you?” He hated hearing that word as a descriptor for his brother, but quelled the annoyance.

 

“No, it wasn’t me.”

 

“Then who was it?” Castiel looked wary.

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Could Lucifer have done it? Could God?”

 

“There’s no way Lucifer would push himself back into a weaker vessel. It wasn’t him.”

 

“So it was God?” Castiel persisted.

 

“I don’t know.” He replied, probably a little too firmly.

 

They all fell silent. Eventually, Sam broke the silence. “So... could we use Lucifer?”

 

Gabriel tilted his face back up to the ceiling, rubbing his face with his hands. In a muffled voice he said “No.” His hands fell back to his sides. “Lucifer is far too dangerous to work with unrestrained.”

 

“Then we’ll find a way to restrain him.” Dean announced, confident as usual.

 

“No you won’t,” he replied. “Trust me. We deal with Amara first, then we find a way to beat my brot-” he corrected himself, they wouldn’t appreciate the familiarity. “Lucifer. Amara is a more immediate threat. Lucifer will bide his time. Besides, that spell will have taken it out of him a bit.”

 

Sam piped up. “Well, looks like we’re back to the books.” Gabriel’s heart sank.

 

Traditionally, Gabriel wasn’t a huge researcher. He liked to read; he’d read all the classics as they came out, and actually made cameos in a few. However, enjoying a good book was very different to the kind of research the brothers two wanted him to do. They led him to their library, and the tall one unceremoniously thumped a pile of books down in front of him. He couldn’t pretend he wasn’t staring at his ass as he made his way around the table. Unfortunately, eventually that ass sat down, and Gabriel was forced to find another distraction.

 

He surreptitiously pulled out a chocolate bar, and began munching, occasionally flipping through pages. He turned over a particularly boring page, and ceased eating immediately. It was another thing he really needed to stop thinking about.

 

\----

Kalighat Temple, India, Present day:

 

Gabriel sat mournfully on the roof of the Kalighat Temple. He watched crowds mill about below, drifting in and out of the building. He hadn’t expected to see her here, and he was not proven wrong. He wasn’t entirely sure why he had come. It’d been years since he last saw her, and even more years since they broke it off, though it had never been official.

 

He found comfort in the crowds, and in the sinking sun. He’d always loved this time of day. It didn’t fit into day or night, but existed in between, just as he did. The light bounced off the distant river, which once would have flowed beneath him, hugging the lawn of the temple.

 

Gabriel had always found the worship rituals of her followers fascinating. It was colourful, animated and altogether new to him. It may have been why he liked her; she was exotic, and dangerous and beautiful all at the same time. She smelt of something new, something he could run to, away from either of the other two pantheons he was in, when he needed to.

 

Below him, he heard the screams of a goat; they were all too familiar, as was the ritual that came after. He watched as its screams turned to gurgles, and its blood poured onto the dry earth beneath it. Something crashed in the space below, some crockery or tools being dropped or knocked. The noise was enough to startle him out of his reverie. He left after that; the magic of the moment was gone, and the longer he stayed away the angrier the Winchesters would get.

 

Needless to say, Gabriel avoided books on Hinduism after that.

 

\-----

 

The Men of Letters Bunker, present day:

 

“Where did you go?” Castiel sounded angry.

 

“A place.” Gabriel responded bluntly.

 

Dean shot him a dirty look across the table. Gabriel shot the most sarcastic smile he could muster right back at him.

 

“Gabriel,” Sam started.

 

“Sam,” Gabriel replied.

 

“If we’re going to win this thing, we need to work for it. All of us. You included. Head down, start reading.”

 

“I get all tingly when you take control like that, Sammy.” He could practically feel the heat emanating off of them now. There’s a good chance it was anger, but Gabriel was feeling optimistic.

 

“Only I get to call him Sammy.” Dean butted in.

 

Gabriel hid a smile. He was starting to think this whole arrangement might actually be fun.

 

 

\----

 

It had gotten to about midnight, and the Winchesters were still, somehow, managing to continue researching, though he could see their eyelids drooping. He’d been studying them more than he had been studying any of the books they put in front of him. They read easier than anything on paper.

 

Firstly, he could warm his hands on the chemistry coming off of Dean and Cas. He wondered if they’d been doing anything behind closed doors, but he suspected from the sexual frustration emanating off of both of them that they hadn’t. He guessed that Cas was probably pretty sexually repressed in general, and hunting culture didn’t seem to celebrate queer activities, which would account for the other one’s repression. He also came to the conclusion that the tall one was definitely cute. Gabriel toyed slightly with the idea of seducing him, but decided they were all too tired to make rational decisions, and besides, he was pretty sure Sam still had it out for him. It was probably something to do with the whole Mystery Spot debacle, despite that being fuck knows how many years ago. If there were two things he’d learnt about humans over the years, one was that telling them not to do something was a terrible idea, and that they are fantastic at holding even the pettiest of grudges.

 

Eventually they decided to call it a day and headed off to bed.

“Night Sammy,” Gabriel called. They both tensed up, but were apparently too tired to fight. With no reply, Gabriel admired the view as Sam walked away.

 

With the Winchesters gone, his eyes wandered back to the page in front of him. This particular book was heavily illustrated. Gabriel had to admit, some of the works he had been given had a sort of morbid yet somehow still appealing aesthetic, and would on occasion capture his mind in their pages. They told of bloody battles, gruesome sacrifices, beautiful angels and hideous demons; so basically just his life. He thought of how easily humans had been led to harbour such strict notions about good and evil. Gabriel had found, from personal experience, that there was no such thing as either. He had seen angels tear apart whole human civilisations, and he had seen demons seemingly do things out of pure love.

 

However, the scene on the page he was looking at harboured only evil in his mind. It depicted a rather unflattering (the Medieval period had been a weird one) version of none other than himself, gruesomely slaughtering a hoard of grotesque demons. The entire page was spewed with blood, dismembered body parts and scrambling monsters. Gabriel hung in the air towards the top right corner of the page, overlooking the carnage with an uncaring eye. Despite the gore, his wings and garments remained a pristine white. As his finger travelled across the page, tracing the intricate border, it came to rest on one particularly odd demon. It wasn’t so much that it looked very different from the others- they were all pretty ugly- but the fact that it seemed to be climbing across the border, staring straight at the reader. Its body was covered in spines and horns, with a cobweb of scars across its skin. He quickly flipped the page.

 

It wasn’t much better. Although the next page was free of demons, it did depict a rather disturbing image of himself, Michael and Raphael. To humans of the era in which it was drawn, it was probably normal. It was the disinterested expressions on their faces that got to Gabriel; they lacked any of the personality that he knew he and his brothers had, stoic as they may be. In truth, this belief terrified him.

 

\-----

Heaven, Before Lucifer’s Fall:

The moon was low on the horizon over the wastelands outside of the Garden. Gabriel stood, as tall as he could, head held up and his shoulders pushed back. Michael’s hand rested, heavy, on his shoulder. Michael looked into Gabriel’s eyes, his gaze intense, but brimming with more emotion than he had ever seen in it.

 

“Gabriel,” he started, “there’s something you need to be aware of. Things are changing around here. God is bringing His Plan to fruition. Some of what will happen will be good, but some will be bad.  I want you to listen to Father, but I need you to do one thing for me. Can you do that?”

 

“Of course,” Gabriel was eager to reply, despite having no knowledge of what he was being asked to do.

 

“I need you to go our brother, Lucifer, and I need you to tell him something. I need you to tell him how much you love him, and that you will never forget him. Do you understand?”

 

Gabriel was at a complete loss of words. He remained silent, giving his brother a slight nod, though he didn’t understand a thing.


	11. Chapter 11

Men of Letters Bunker, present day:

 

The clock had ticked around to 1:00 a.m. and both he and Castiel were still in the library, pouring over book after book. Gabriel turned back to the previous page, absentmindedly tracing the demon’s scars. His eyes shift to Cas. He looked completely burnt out, and Gabriel actually felt a twinge of...something. Kind of like the something he used to feel for Michael and Lucifer, and yes, even Raphael. He supposed he felt bad for him.

 

He desperately wanted to talk to him, but not really having any point of reference, he didn’t know how. His coat looked torn and dirty, and upon further inspection Gabriel realised it wasn’t the same one he’d had before, it was shorter, and a little more clunky.

 

“What happened to your old coat?” He asked.

 

Castiel didn’t even glance his way. “Lost it.”

 

“How?”

 

“Long story.”

 

They sat in tense silence for what felt like an excruciatingly long time.

 

Gabriel broke the silence. “Found anything?” He gestured to the pile of books near Cas.

 

This time Castiel looked at him. He looked exasperated. “What are you doing?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Cas sighed. “You know exactly what I mean.”

 

Gabriel felt a twinge of frustration. “I’m making conversation.”

 

Cas stared at him briefly, a slightly puzzled expression on his face. “Don’t.”

 

They fell back into silence. To make matters worse, his head had begun to ache.

 

\-----

 

After an excruciatingly awkward night, finally morning came. Gabriel had left the bunker just before sunrise, and now sat perched on a high rock situated on top of it. He let the cool, crisp air fill his lungs. Though he did not need oxygen, over the years he had come to take comfort in such small, human things. Perhaps it was his vessel. The sun peeked over the distant horizon, yellow and orange. As it did, the rest of the sky lit up, painting the clouds an array of yellows, reds, oranges and pinks, still tinged with the purple of the night.

 

Gabriel recalled the envy with which he would admire his older brother’s wings. Michael’s were a pure, crisp white, with glimmering golden wing feathers, enormous with three sets. He would often wait with Michael towards sunset, so he could watch the way in which they lit up with all the colours the sun was filling the sky with, all the colours he now saw before him over Lebanon.

 

By now the colours were starting to dissipate, and the sky became its normal light blue. Gabriel’s headache had increased exponentially, and was really starting to ruin his day.

 

As the change in light and increase in pain occurred, Gabriel knew the Winchesters would also have risen, despite the ungodly hour. Sure enough, when he appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, both were groggily pouring their coffee and apparently rooting around the cupboard for whatever they could find. Sam had gone for some obscure mix of grains, whereas Dean had headed straight for the bacon.

 

He surreptitiously slid into the spot at the kitchen bench next to Sam. This way he could keep a good eye on Sam’s ridiculously muscular shoulders, and deduce whatever the hell was going on between the other two. Cas seemed to have relaxed a little since the last apocalypse, but was still pretty tense, especially with his posture; the guy literally looked like he had a stick jammed up his ass. In the current context, it was probably kind of an inappropriate metaphor, so he kept this thought to himself.

 

Sam, again, had on that adorable little frown he had while researching. He had a few for different tasks. Gabriel hadn’t quite deduced what each one was, but he definitely knew this one. He had been scrolling through his phone, but had paused on one story in particular.

 

“Hey, listen to this,” he started. “’Series of remarkable medical recoveries sweeping through Louisiana parish.’”

 

“Whereabouts?” Dean asked.

 

“Rapides Parish, Louisiana.”

 

Gabriel watched as all three simultaneously formed a horseshoe shape- he wasn’t quite sure what else to call it- with their mouths. He sensed it was a sort of communal agreement that it might be a case. He hadn’t been aware Cas did cases like this these days, but times had certainly changed.

 

“Well, Louisiana, here we come.” Dean said, sipping his coffee.

 

Neither Cas nor Gabriel felt like flying, and Dean said he needed to drive, for whatever reason, so an hour later they set off south-east for the Sugar State. Gabriel had a lot on his plate, but decided to tag along for a while. He kind of liked driving; it was like a slow, lazy flight, but without the duress of exercising his wings, which were tired. He realised this was probably why Cas was so eager to come along. He couldn’t fault him; he had been grounded himself a few times, after particularly bad fights, and after experiencing flight it was one of the worst things an angel could endure. He recalled Michael’s worried face after Gabriel took a bad hit from a demon once, and how his face alone had scared him far more than the actual wound.

 

The slow pace of the car gave him a chance to really appreciate the landscape, and the landscape of North America had always fascinated him. It was a land filled with convenience stores, neon lights and highways, interspersed with patches of nature, pine trees in the north, deserts and swamps in the south.

 

They piled into the Impala, Sam riding shotgun, Dean driving and Cas and Gabriel in the back. Cas went to sleep almost immediately, while Dean hummed along to the obnoxious rock music screaming from the speakers. Sam seemed completely oblivious to it, but he must have had some pretty intense conditioning over the years.

 

Against the drone of the music and blurry landscape, Gabriel’s mind wandered. He started to make a list in his mind of all the many, complicated things he needed to address. Foremost, he needed to figure out how to defeat Amara. He also needed to decided what he was going to do about Lucifer; once Amara was dealt with, Lucifer would be the next big thing. There was one more chip on his shoulder aside from that though; Kali. It wasn’t as though she was the only person he’d been with, or the only one who was that significant. In truth he wasn’t quite sure what it was. He didn’t love her anymore, for whatever reason. He supposed it was sentiment, or habit, or possibly obsession. Whatever the reasoning, it was bugging him; closure was what he needed.

 

London, 2002:

****

Gabriel sat at the bar, nursing a glass of whiskey. It was one of those fancy places where all the glamorous socialites and celebrities came to get their kicks. Of course Gabriel hadn’t originally been on the guest list, but that wasn’t hard to fix. He scanned the room. One blonde with a great ass to his left, a guy with no apparent gag reflex behind him, a few more of the same. Eventually his eyes settled on the Indian beauty to his right. She sat at the bar, her long fingers pushing an olive around in her martini. She wore a crimson red dress, tight-fitting with a plunging neckline. She looked familiar; Gabriel tossed her image around his head until he realised. She was some Indian deity, one he’d seen around in the past, but had never bothered to talk to her. There were a lot of deities in the world, and believe it or not Gabriel led a very busy lifestyle. He tried to pull her name off of the tip of his tongue, but failed, instead opening with a simple yet loaded, “Hey”.

She looked at him with a mixture of disdain and vague interest, though the expression was far heavier with the former.

“Loki.” Gabriel wasn’t going to lie; he felt a brief pang in his chest at the thought, but in reality, she was probably pretty good at remembering names; her pantheon was pretty damn big.

Luckily, his brain clicked into gear at that. “Kali,” he said.

Kali took a delicate sip from her drink, left some change on the counter, took his hand and led him off to the ladies’ bathrooms.

Present Day: 

He had some of the best sex of his life in one of those stalls, and for years kept coming back for more. It had never been official- that wasn’t either of their styles- but it was significant; they were in love, though they only ever said it once.

They’d been driving for about a half an hour, and the relentless droning music was getting to be too much for Gabriel. He decided his business was probably better elsewhere, and with a brief flutter he found himself sitting in that very same bar in London. It had been done up, with the old décor, which had been modern at the time, having been replaced with new, shiny technology-driven furniture and fittings. He didn’t really expect to see her here, as he hadn’t expected to see her at the Kalighat temple. He supposed he was simply following her ghost.

The clientele hadn’t changed, he noticed as he sat at the bar. They were just as glamorous, just as beautiful as they had been the first time he had come here. The bar was full, but despite the crowds she was not there. He ordered a tall glass of their strongest drink, and proceeded to down drink after drink. After about an hour, he was plastered, and still hopelessly gazing around him. He had almost decided to leave, stumble back into the Impala in shame, when by some strange twist of fate, he caught a glimpse of her. More than a glimpse; a full, rich eyeful of her. The experience was surreal. She sat, poised gracefully, in the exact same place he had last seen her. This time her dress was a dark, electric blue, but of a similar cut to the last one.  He walked over to her in a daze. He wasn’t sure at first whether or not he was imagining her, but the look on her face when she saw told him she most definitely real.

She had always covered her feelings with a thick layer of stoicism, but her underlying surprise was evident. Neither said a word as he followed her outside, to the alley behind the bar. It was a pretty grimy alley, but he wasn’t complaining. She stood outside, facing away from him. Neither made a sound, and she did not appear to be moving. Gabriel took matters into his own hands, which turned out to be a really bad idea. Stepping slowly, silently closer, he eventually got close enough to place his hand on her arm.

In one fluid movement, she erupted in movement, flipping Gabriel and pinning him against the wall before he could blink. At first, Gabriel thought he’d made a pretty good move, but these hopes were completely and utterly dashed when he saw the look of pure fury in her face. Neither said anything for a few moments; Kali out of anger, Gabriel out of fear.

“You died,” she spoke, with an air of finality.

“Guess someone’s looking out for me,” he responded.

“Why are you here? You hate this bar; their whisky is terrible, you always said so.”

Gabriel’s tone and face softened. “To find you.”

She smiled, though it wasn’t a kind one, and scoffed in disbelief. Here face then darkened.

“Bull-shit.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you.”

This time she let out a clear, audible laugh. “Well aren’t you such a fucking saint.”

Gabriel was a little surprised at her sudden use of coarse language; she hardly ever swore. He felt her arm begin to heat up against his neck.

“I should take you back, arms akimbo,” she continued, “because you promise to treat me with some goddamn decency? No more cheating? No more drinking? Or lying or tricks? They should be lining up around the block for the most decent archangel there is.” His felt his skin begin to scald where she touched him. “Everything we had was built on your cowardice and lies. You don’t stay on top by swimming with the bottom feeders. I never had a relationship with Loki, and I sure as hell don’t want another racist, entitled angel on my arm.”

Gabriel stayed silent, though he felt tears stinging at his eyes. Not because of what she said, but because he knew what she was saying was absolutely true. She pressed up against him, tender this time, and Gabriel was mildly confused. His confusion ended when she jerked with all her might, of which she had a lot, and jammed her knee into his crotch. He felt a crunch upon impact, and immediately collapsed to the ground in pain. As he lay upon the damp asphalt, he looked up at her. She had a satisfied smile plastered across her face.

“How the mighty have fallen,” she spoke, quietly, though Gabriel wasn’t sure if he’d ever been in any position to call himself mighty. She moved back into the bar, leaving him to writhe in pain alone. The worst part was that Gabriel deserved every single blow, verbal and physical.


	12. Chapter 12

Present Day:

Shortly after his unfortunate and probably final, a thought he was attempting to come to terms with, meeting with Kali, Gabriel sat in the back of the Impala, trying to prevent the pain he was in from showing. To do this, he stared stoically out the window, trying to focus on the rolling landscape and the music blasting out of the speakers. He hadn’t said a word since he had returned, but, luckily, the others didn’t care enough about him to press for details.

Despite the crushing loneliness, unpleasant ache in his groin and strong sense of rejection and self-hate, Gabriel could tick one thing off his list, and could confidently say it was a pretty clean break, and one that would be easier to heal had he never found her again, or had she had mixed feelings, which he was certainly she did not. Unfortunately, this meant he had to start dealing with his other two problems, which were not exactly easy tasks to address.

But Gabriel was a skilled procrastinator, and decided to add another, easier item to his itinerary; find the source of the miracles and save the day, and hopefully, win the gratefulness of some cute country guy or gal. However, for some unknown reason, probably Karma, the powers-that-be were deciding to make this day even worse for Gabriel, as a stabbing pain started in his head. It would start at the base of his skull, and gradually spread upwards; he knew the drill by now.

After some time had passed, the sun began to set, and the landscape out the window changed from pine trees to swamps. Just outside of Rapides Parish they stopped outside a convenience store, windows rolled down and the muggy, hot air began to fill the car as it sat stationary beside the pump. Cas was, somehow, still asleep beside him.

Dean leaned around, “You guys want anything?”

“I’ll come with you,” Gabriel piped up. To say the least, Dean did not look particularly over-joyed at the suggestion. Sam, clearly practiced in appeasing his brother, offered to go in with Gabriel to pay and for snacks, while Dean filled up the car. One of the things Gabriel had missed most was the glorious array of junk food that humans had managed to invent; it was his personal opinion that Pringles and Hershey’s were up there with antibiotics and porn. He helped himself to both, while Sam went for a meagre can of peaches.

Gabriel eyed him up, cocking one eyebrow at him. “Seriously?”

Sam looked surprised. “What?”

“Peaches? We’re at a gas station, not yoga class.”

Sam looked a little affronted, stuttering a little until Gabriel quelled his nerves with a smile, and a reassurance that he was “just messin’ with ‘em”. Sam giggled a little at that, and the warm spark that stuttered in and then out in his stomach, startled him.

Behind the counter was a middle-aged, rather plump woman, with a kind face. She smiled as she scanned their food, and gave them a peculiar look.

“Road trip?” she asked.

“You could say that,” Sam responded.

“Well,” she leaned over the counter, voice hushed, “I think it’s very brave what you’re doing. We’ve been getting a lot more honeymooners coming through in recent years.”

Sam quickly back-tracked, “Oh, um,” he stuttered, “we’re not, uh, we’re just friends.”

“Oh, I see,” she replied, “my apologies. You have a nice night now.” She gave them a knowing nod and sent them on their way, Gabriel snickering and Sam showing bright pink across his cheeks and nose. Despite the awkward encounter, Sam pulled Gabriel away quietly, before they were in view of the Impala. Gabriel was a little confused, but wasn’t complaining; there were worse things he could think of than being alone with Sam Winchester behind a convenience store.

“Can I ask you something?” Sam started.

Gabriel nodded silently.

“Look,” Sam continued, “Dean’s too proud to ask, and Cas is too much of a martyr, but I need to know: can you fix Cas?”

Gabriel hesitated to respond. Truthfully, he knew he could, once he fixed himself, but it wouldn’t be easy, and Team Free Will definitely would not approve of the process. He responded with a simple, safe “Maybe.”

Sam looked exasperated. “Why is it always ‘maybe’ with you?”

He had to admit, it hurt a little, but Dean took away his chance to respond by loudly calling them from the car.

“What took you so long?” he asked as they got in.

“Uh- “Sam insightfully responded.

Gabriel interjected, “He needed to pee.”

“What, you’re taking bathroom buddies now?” he queried, but answered his own question, “Actually, I don’t wanna know. Let’s blow this place and get to a motel, I’m dead on my feet.”

They arrived in Rapides around midnight, and checked into the first affordable motel they could find. Dean groggily helped Cas inside, and with an uncommon tenderness placed him down on the bed. Cas was exhausted, and meagrely protested. This argument was silenced when Dean grabbed a spare pillow and blanket from the cupboard and collapsed onto the couch. Sam followed suit on the other bed, while Gabriel was left to wait in the chair next to the rickety dining table. He turned off the lights, and prepared to wait it out until morning. As quiet snores began to rise from all three, Gabriel found himself focussing his gaze and mind on Sam.

He had lied to him; he knew that if he was at full strength, he could restore Cas to his full strength. It wasn’t even particularly labour-intensive, but he would have to do things that Gabriel wouldn’t be proud of when it was all said and done. It came as a shock that the most unappealing aspect of the whole thing was the knowledge that Sam and Cas may very well disown him upon learning of how he carried the process out. As a rule, Gabriel didn’t care what others thought, and certainly not some random human. But Sam was not some random human; he was a Winchester, chosen by God and Lucifer to live the life he had and was still living.

He had always known his Father had plans in store for him. He remembered the first time he had seen Sam. He had long since run away from Heaven, but kept track of the proceedings from the sidelines. It was 1983; Gabriel stood over Sam’s crib, studying the child below. The house was dark, but Sam still wriggled and gurgled under his blankets. Human babies often perplexed Gabriel, and he knew for a fact they confused a lot of the other angels as well. To be frank, God had created few things less capable of keeping themselves alive than human babies. They had no fur, no teeth, no claws; they couldn’t even run away. Despite this, somehow the small, pink thing writhing in its onesie before him would one day shape the world.

Gabriel’s mind came back to the present as he watched over the three comatose men sprawled across their beds (and couches) before him. There was a brief pain in his head, but it passed quickly. With nothing better to do, Gabriel remained where he was, slumped at the shitty table in the corner of the room, and kept watch until dawn broke. As it peeked over the horizon, the vision hit. It was short and definitely not sweet. In quick succession, he saw a sign leading into Rapides Parish, and a huge Southern Red Oak positioned in a scrubby glade.

He woke, head reeling, to Dean not-so-gently slapping him over the face, with the other two standing over him. As he came to, he waved Dean away.

“What happened? Happy hour not go so happy?” Dean asked.

“I had a vision,” Gabriel replied in a groggy voice.

Sam perked up, “What did you see?”

“Uuuh, a sign, coming into Rapides. And a tree.”

“A tree?” Dean pressed, “What kind of tree?”

“A Southern Red Oak, I think.”

Dean looked vaguely confused. “How do you know that?”

“I know what they look like,” Sam said. “I like trees.”

Dean gave him a blank look.

Sam reached past his brother to help Gabriel up. “You ok?” Dean gave him a disbelieving look in return. Gabriel was a little taken aback himself, but took it as a compliment, of sorts.

“Uhh, yeah, I am, thanks,” he said with a small smile.

After a brief period of silence, Dean announced, in his typical fashion the day’s plan.

“Alright, the tree is clearly in Rapides. I say, we split up, Sam and I head toward- “Castiel interjected.

“Why do I have to go with him?” Dean looked exasperated.

“Because he can take care of you better than we can at the moment. You’ll be fine. Just don’t get lost. Hold hands if you have to.”

Cas didn’t look happy, but regardless Dean continued. “Once we split up, Sam and I head to the Big Bayou, Cas and Gabriel, I’m dropping you at St Matthew’s, you head toward the Red River. Right, let’s go,” and with an inspiring clap of Dean’s hands, they were off.

It was a cold day, for Louisiana, but the sky was clear and the sun gave them some relief. As the Impala drove away, Gabriel found it hard not to notice the service being held in the church. There was a party outside, fronted by a very vocal priest. A boy, no older than six or seven, dwarfed by the wheelchair he was in, sat before him. The boy looked towards the heavens, a look of rapture and devotion on his face. He proclaimed his faith to Christ at the encouragement of the priest, while his parents knelt beside him with similar expressions, the mother tearful and the father proud. Some in the crowd had been brought to tears, wailing and singing along to the sermon, hands lifted in prayer.

Gabriel was broken out of his own rapture by Cas’ words.

“It’s best not to dwell on it, I find.”

Gabriel paused before replying, “On what?”

“Their unadulterated faith. I dwelled on it far too much for a long time. I hated Father, for abandoning us and them. It did me no good. I made a lot of mistakes in my anger.” He paused speaking briefly. Gabriel took in the singing of the people and the songs of the birds in the surrounding trees. “It took me a long time to realise that they don’t do it for God.”

It wasn’t the first time Gabriel had thought about this, and he had come to his own conclusions. However, he was curious to see where Cas was going, how he’d changed since Gabriel had died.

“What do you think they do it for?” Gabriel pressed him further.

“They do it for community. For family, hope. Security. Even if the security isn’t real, the mental benefits of their beliefs are. Humans are the best part of God. Not Him, not us. It was always them.”

Cas moved left down the road running parallel to the Church, slowly, with a slight limp. After a moment of quiet thought, Gabriel followed. Their eyes began to scan the landscape, searching for the promised tree. There were definitely plenty to pick from, but it was clear they were not going to find it on the beaten track. They turned off to the left a way down from the church, onto a dirt lane. They’d been searching for about an hour before Cas received a text from Dean.

It was a picture of a Southern Red Oak, with the caption:

“Got wood?”

Cas didn’t appreciate the joke, or rather didn’t understand. Regardless, it wasn’t the tree they were looking for.

“Will you even recognise the tree?” Cas asked, “There must be a million like it.”

“This one was different. Trust me, it was huge. It should stand out a mile away.”

They continued to walk for several more hours. By evening Gabriel was utterly fed up, and Cas was losing strength. Eventually they reached the river. The clean air and scent of the water quelled their nerves, but the relief was only temporary. His senses had been improving every day, and at that moment another scent drifted into Gabriel’s nose: the scent of freshly churned up earth.

“Do you smell that?” He asked Cas.

Cas muttered a sleepy no. Gabriel grabbed his sleeve anyway, and pulled him further into the forest away from the river, in search of the new scent. After a moment of blindly crashing through the vegetation, they burst into a clearing in the trees. The ground was covered in thick, emerald green grass and moss, and was shaded by the beams of a massive Southern Red Oak tree, the base of which was surrounded with fresh, moist earth.

Gabriel walked slowly across the soft, silencing grass, trailing Cas behind him, until the sound of the cushiony grass beneath their feet turned into the sound of sturdy boots on hollow wood.

“Bingo.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More angels rise from the dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an apology for it being so short this week. I've been very busy and just haven't had a chance to do much of anything.

One hour later, all four were standing around the dusty, rotted coffin laying in its own shallow grave. The sun was now set, the setting picturesque; the babbling of the river behind them danced with the songs of the birds in their ears, while a flock of monarch butterflies fluttered around the enormous tree that loomed over them. It was unusually pleasant, especially for their lives.

Dean broke the peace in his typical, curt way.

“Well, shit. What do you say we crack into this baby hey?” With that, he produced a rusty shovel from behind his back, and quickly drove it down into the soft wood, hard enough to shatter the lock. With as much grace, he threw the lid open, which, as rotten as it was, cracked into pieces when it hit the ground.

All four were, needless to say, taken aback by what they saw. This was because none of them were entirely sure. It definitely looked like a body, but what kind was difficult to tell. It was cached in mud and soil, spotted with plant matter. There were even a few miscellaneous organisms wriggling about in there.

As the body turned, their shock increased tenfold. It wasn’t unusual for people to be brought back to life for them; they were used to that. But they did all like to think they were pretty good at predicting who it would be.

“We need to get out of the open.”

Anna spoke with as much determination and bluntness as she always had.

Sam, Dean, Cas and Gabriel briefly exchanged looks, until Dean reached into the grave to pull her out. Cas gave her his coat as she rose up, the dirt covering her gradually crumbling off. All four were silent.

Anna then looked Dean square in the face, and said, “I’m not the only one.”

Dean paused, gathered himself and replied, “Yeah, we know, Gabriel’s back too. A few days ago.”

“No,” she started, “I mean, yes, he is, but he’s not the only one. Neither am I. Someone else. Another miracle. I’m not the only one.”

At that she set off across the clearing, disappearing into the trees in a beeline for the road. With nothing else to do, and, admittedly, in a state of shock, the other four followed.

“Anna!” Dean called after her, “Anna! Come back, wait!”

“What?” she turned abruptly.

“Where are you going?” Sam asked.

“The road. I’m presuming you have a car. Then we’re going to find the next miracle.”

“Yeah but,” Dean stammered, “you were dead. Like, two seconds ago.”

“We’ve all been dead at some point, what’s the big deal.”

“Do you want us to get you some clothes though? I mean, you do look, well,” Dean fought for an end to his sentence, “you look like you just crawled out of the ground.”

“My appearance isn’t exactly on the top of my list of things to worry about, asshole,” she responded vehemently. “I just came back from the dead, and now if you’re finished whining, I have to go find someone. I don’t need your permission, but I do need your car. My wings hurt.” With that, she again departed, with the others trailing behind her.

When they arrived, Anna was waiting by the driver’s side for the keys. Dean didn’t even try and protest against her driving, but handed her the keys, and, without a word, seated himself in the passenger side, with the other three crammed awkwardly into the back.

After a few excruciating moments of silence Dean ventured, as delicately as possible, to point out to Anna that she wasn’t actually wearing any clothes.

“Were there any other miracles around town?” Anna skirted the statement.

“Uh, yeah, actually,” Sam piped up. “There was a girl, at the Rapides Regional Medical Centre. Seven years old, had been suffering from stomach cancer for years. She was stage five, they’d just taken her off life support when she woke up. They did some tests; her cancer was completely gone. She’s not the only one too, a still born infant came back to life an hour after being born. Another man had been shot five times, he’d flat lined on the operating table, as soon as they called it he came back to life, all wounds healed.”

“Well, Rapides Regional, here we come,” Anna responded. She then asked, “I get the feeling none of your clothes are going to fit me.”

“Yeah, probably not,” Dean said, “we can stop off at a thrift shop, get you something there.”

Gabriel interjected, “No need.” It didn’t require a whole lot of his strength to conjure her up some clothes. They weren’t fancy, but they would do.

Anna didn’t even blink. “Thank you.” After a brief pause she continued, “Have there been any other miracles, or is it just the ones at the hospital?”

“As far as I know, it’s just that one, yeah,” Sam added.

“Ok, good. We’re going to have to keep an eye on the whole country though. Angels obviously aren’t being brought back all at the same time, if Gabriel came back a while ago. There’s nothing to say we’re the only ones.”

“Why is this happening?” It was the first thing Cas had said since they found the tree. “Who is bringing them back? They’d have to be powerful; bringing back an archangel is no easy feat.”

No one said anything in response the entire way to the hospital, but every single person was thinking the same thing; it’s either Amara, or by some miracle God is actually alive, and hasn’t completely forgotten about his children. Gabriel couldn’t decide which was more likely, and he also couldn’t decide how he felt about the whole thing. Sure, he was alive, and that was great, but if God was still alive as well, then Gabriel wasn’t sure how he could forgive a father who watched his children die for the sake of narrative.

Then something dawned on him. “Hey Anna? How’d you know I was brought back only a while ago?”

“Because I just woke up, covered in mud and weaker than a human child, and you appear to be a hell of a lot stronger than I am right now, and also are dressed in clean clothes.”

“Oh. Ok. That makes sense.” Anna had always seemed to have answers for things. She was free-spirited, Gabriel had seen that from the start. There were a few angels that, as they were being made, Gabriel could tell they would be special. They had the spark in their eye that Lucifer, and, later himself, had had. But Anna was other things too: clever, compassionate, hard-working, and strong. Stronger than Gabriel in some respects. She never backed down, and she never ran. She fought to the death for what she believed in. Gabriel may have been able to kill easier than her. He could conjure things up out of thin air, smite vast expanses of land, but he still had never had the courage she had. If times got bad, Gabriel skipped out; he ran at the slightest inclination of danger. But Anna was cut from a different cloth, a better one, in Gabriel’s eye.

“Ok,” Anna began as they pulled in. “We’re looking for an angel, probably in a poor state, like I was. We find who it is, then we get the hell out of dodge. You can fill me in on what I’ve missed on the way to wherever you guys are staying.”

“Sounds good,” Dean replied. “What do you say we split up? We’ll cover more ground that way, and it’s not as though we can get lost is a hospital this small.”

All agreed, and they went off on their own separate ways. ­­Gabriel took the right-hand front corner of the hospital, walking slowly through the halls, peeking into the wards and other rooms. On his way to his designated area, he caught Anna staring at something. As he approached, he saw it was today’s newspaper.

“Yeah, the date knocked the air out of me too.”

Without a word, she moved on. Gabriel shrugged it off, and set off by himself.

It didn’t take long for him to do a full check of his area, with nothing to show for it at the end. He was about to sneak out, go get something to eat, possibly watch some porn, when he got a text from Sam.

“Found one. Left wing.”

Gabriel didn’t need the room number to find him. He’d memorised what Sam felt like a long time ago, a realisation that sent a little shiver up his spine. When he arrived, all four were standing around a bed in a darkened room. As Gabriel entered, Sam stepped aside to let him in. As they stood side by side, Gabriel’s hand brushed his.

In the bed lay the comatose form of none other than everyone’s favourite angelic philanthropist, looking not quite so savvy in a blue hospital gown.

Dean reached out to prod him. “Balthazar?” he asked. He shook him a little more firmly. “Balthazar?”

Sam shoved Dean from across the bed. “Stop it!”

“Why?”

“Because he’s clearly injured. Poking him isn’t going to work.”

“So what do we do?” Dean asked.

All five paused briefly to think. Anna spoke first.

“Where are you all staying?”

“Temporarily?” Sam responded, “a hotel nearby. More permanently, a place down in Lebanon, Kansas.”

“We take him to Lebanon then,” Anna answered with a finality.

“Ok,” Dean said. “Gabriel, are you strong enough that you can carry him down to the bunker while we follow in the Impala?”

“No,” Gabriel responded. It was only partly a lie. He was still sore, but could probably manage to carry him down there. However, he really couldn’t afford to waste his energy, and he had other things he needed to take care of. “I can get him to the car though.” It was a short enough distance.

“Great. We’ll meet you down there,” Dean said as they filed out.

As swiftly and discreetly as possible, Gabriel gently lifted Balthazar and flew him down the car. He was heavier than Gabriel had expected, but manageable. He didn’t bother to wait for the others to come down- they would be there soon- and skipped out.


	14. Chapter 14

Philadelphia, present day: 

It was night by now, and the neon signs from the various shitty stores illuminated the street before him, painting a rainbow of flickering colours across the puddles on the footpath. One storefront, no more than a doorway, was particularly bright. Blue strips flashed around it, and a sign above proclaimed its name, _Shangri-La._ As Gabriel descended the steps, the smell of burning herbs, liquor and the stench of a multitude of different beings filled his nostrils. _Shangri-La_ tended to attract far more than just humans. Of course, humans were not banned, that would be a poor business venture, but most found, upon entering, an inexplicable desire to turn back the way they had come and never look back. Those that stayed were usually prostitutes or performers, or were associated in some way with a non-human patron.

Gabriel had frequented this place regularly before his death, though of course not as himself. Traditionally, angels were not particularly welcome here, but he suspected things had changed. Indeed, they had; as he entered the room he spied a couple of angels in the seats around the outside of the room, one with his head in his drink, another being entertained with a lap dance from one of the boys. Gabriel hid a bit of his power, but he didn’t bother with all of it. He got a few stares as he entered, but ignored them, leaning up against the bar. Almost immediately he was handed a glass of chocolate liqueur- apparently the bar-maid remembered him. However, there was only one person in this joint that he had eyes for.

“You’re back,” a silvery voice spoke from behind him, though whether male or female he hadn’t ever been able to pin down. Gabriel generally referred to her as a woman, though he had on occasion swung the other way. He turned to face her. The confusion was justified; she was highly androgynous, but no one could deny her beauty. Two piercing yellow eyes stared back at him, framed by high cheekbones and a mass of curly black hair.

“You know I can never stay away for long,” he responded. Gabriel resisted the urge to reach out and stroke the deep brown skin, so dark it was almost black; he remembered how soft it was, but he held back. The scent of fresh flowers wafted over him as she moved closer, pressing him against the bar with a surprising strength given her slight frame. She allowed her hand to brush his as she leaned in, a gesture Gabriel was certain was not accidental. He felt the heat of it on his skin, hotter even than him at the moment. He expected she noticed; in fact, he was counting on it.

“You left.”

“I’m back now.”

She smiled at him, briefly, until her neutrality turned to rage. Her face contorted and grabbed the bar behind Gabriel hard enough to crack it. Her voice remained quiet, but had a persistent fury bubbling under it, threatening to break her resolve.

“No one just leaves me,” she said slowly, hushed. “Nor does anyone lie to me.”

Gabriel said nothing.

“You were one of my best customers,” she continued, “one of my favourites.” She leaned in, brushing her lips against the skin of his face, until her cheek came to rest against his. Gabriel felt the point of her ears on his flesh, and the warmth behind them. Her birthmark, which seemed to constantly be in the action of alighting onto her cheekbone, burnt hotter than the rest of her. He could feel her breathing shakily, though he expected it was more from anger than anything else. Her kind did not crave love, nor even lust, particularly, but found the greed of possession to be their paramount emotion.

“I can’t help but feel cheated,” she whispered in his ear. “I lost a wealthy investment.”

Gabriel wasn’t about to get back into a deal with her, but he did need her help.

“How about,” he started, “we try a new kind of business venture.”

She paused briefly, then pulled back, a look of trepidation on her face. After a moment, she said, “What kind of business venture would that be?”

“I’ll trade you.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Trade me what?”

Gabriel tried to think quickly. There was no way he was giving her blood again; those things never panned out well for him. But he needed a spell, and he needed it now. He did happen to have some objects of value on his person, ones potentially risky to give away, but certainly not in the hands of the being before him. He held out his hand to her, not saying a word. Her eyebrow remained raised as she hesitantly took it. He led her out of the bar, out the back door and into the alley behind it.

“You know this isn’t my kind of payment, right?” she drawled.

Gabriel reached into his pocket. He may have been weak, but he wasn’t stupid. From his jeans he produced a single black feather, plucked from a certain comatose angel not long ago in the wide white land of Canada.  

A look of desire came into her eyes. “Angel feathers are hard to come by these days; most of them were burnt up in the Fall.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m just full of surprises.” Delicately, she took the feather, storing it away somewhere unseen as soon as it touched her fingers.

“Fair is fair, I suppose,” she replied, opening her palm to reveal a curling scrap of paper.

“What’s this?” Gabriel asked, a look of confusion on his face.

“New material. The old one’s outdated. This one is much more powerful. But be careful; it’s strong. Too large of a dose for a weaker angel, and … well…”  she finished with a hand gesture, mimicking the plumes of smoke and fire that would come off some kind of powerful explosive. Before Gabriel had had time to inspect the spell, and ask what exactly she meant with the gesture, she was gone. Luckily, after a few seconds Gabriel was able to come to the conclusion that all was well; the spell appeared to be legitimate, though time would soon tell.

Unfortunately, it seemed that time would have to wait, as a sharp pang began again in his head. This, however, was not the kind of pain Gabriel had now come to associate with visions. This pain was far more mundane, and came with the persistent praying of the Winchesters, their voices bouncing noisily off the walls of his mind. He quickly stuffed the spell into his pocket, and promptly appeared at the entrance to the library in the Men of Letters bunker.

He wondered briefly how they had gotten there so fast, until he saw the exhausted state Anna was in. He tilted his head in confusion, and received his answer from Sam, who seemed uncharacteristically short-tempered.

“Well,” the younger Winchester began, “Dean decided it would be a good idea to go about 30 miles per hour over the speed limit past a police station, so, Anna here had to step in and get us out of there pronto.”

“I figured getting caught with an escaped and unconscious hospital patient might have slowed our journey down a little,” Anna added.

Gabriel quelled the burst of anger that rose in his chest; Dean wasn’t a bad guy, but he really didn’t appreciate the further maiming of one of his, admittedly quite numerous, younger siblings. He spoke with as much restraint as he could muster.

“Well, good news. I’ve got something that will help. I can deal with most of it myself, but you two,” with this he gestured to Sam and Dean, “are going to be helping me.”

“We are?” Dean sounded indignant.

“What about us?” Cas asked.

“You rest,” Gabriel responded, in a surprisingly tender voice. He wasn’t the only one to notice- he got a few strange looks- but continued on nonetheless. “You might have to give me something later, but you won’t have to do anything.”

He read off the piece of paper he had just been given. “Ok…you think you can get me some ground goat bone? And uh, some basil and wolfs bane?”

“Uuh, yeah,” Sam was the first to respond, “I think we have some of that here. Do you need anything else?”

“No, that’s all. I can get the rest.”

Dean stood up and headed off, presumably to find the aforementioned ingredients, and Gabriel began to make off. However, he was interrupted by Sam gently grabbing his arm and pulling him to the side, out of sight and earshot of Cas and Anna.

“Look,” he said, “I know I asked you to fix Cas, but I need you to promise me something.” Sam drew close, enough that Gabriel could feel his breath on his cheek; he smelled of cheap whiskey and spice, a scent that wasn’t particularly unpleasant. He found himself caught up in his eyes, his gaze wandering over them, then down his cheekbones, and finally across his lips; he managed to stop them going any further down.

“Are you listening?” Sam asked, breaking his reverie.

“Yeah?” Gabriel said, a little too quickly.

“I want them better,” Sam continued, “but I don’t want anyone else hurt because of this. It’s not worth it, and they wouldn’t want it either.”

A knot formed in Gabriel’s chest, cold and heavy. He hadn’t ever been ecstatic about the whole thing, but going against Sam’s wishes made it just that much harder to go through with this. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, but he also didn’t want his siblings living like they were; weak, and some flightless. An angel’s life without wings wasn’t worth living.

“Promise me,” Sam’s tone was insistent.

Gabriel hesitated, but those big green eyes gave him no choice other than to give in. “I promise,” he replied, swallowing a lump in his throat.

Suddenly, the tension of the moment dissipated, and Sam flashed him a smile.

“Ok,” he said, “thanks.” With that he brushed past Gabriel, their hands meeting briefly, and returned to his seat at the table.

Present day, Central Africa, Gabriel’s bunker:

Gabriel stood in his bunker, nestled deep in the bowels of the earth, the jungle humming hungrily above it. He darted between the shelves, scooping up the various required ingredients and artlessly tossing them an old cloth bag. He had everything he needed, bar the ones Sam and Dean were procuring for him, and one other, less pleasant ingredient; and in Gabriel’s experience, when one said something was worse than the tiger semen he had just tossed in, it was pretty damn bad.

In all seriousness, he was not looking forward to this next part. It was not as if he had never done worse, or witnessed worse with no intention of intervening, but Gabriel had hoped that with his death and rebirth those particular kinds of deeds would become a forgotten nightmare of his past.

He decided to pick the one with the least hope. That took him not too far away- and by that he meant at least on the same continent- to a makeshift hospital in some far corner Africa, the kind one sees on the news or in charity ads. When he arrived on site the moon was high in the sky, and the air was muggy, filled with tortured groans and the distant cries of hungry animals in the surrounding bush. As he walked through the halls, though in reality they were simply gaps in the tents, he had to tread carefully over the bodies of the sick, dying and dead. He saw only one person upright, a nurse, caring for a patient in one of the large, sprawling tents. She did not notice him as he walked past; she had other things to attend to that were of far more importance than some random angel walking her quiet, groaning halls.

Gabriel followed the sound of an infant crying. He stepped as delicately as he could around the patients, and eventually came to rest at the doorway to another tent. There was a large cross hanging above the entrance, crudely made from local wood, decorated with what flowers the maker could locate. His gaze dropped to the woman standing amongst the mattresses strewn across the floor, lined with babies and toddlers. The woman was dressed in a doctor’s uniform, and bent over one infant in particular, though it was not the one that Gabriel had heard crying- that one was still wriggling in the corner, making as much of a fuss as it could.

He noticed her face was wet. “Why are you crying?”

“I am not crying. It is sweat, from the heat. One cannot cry in a place like this; there is too much sadness already.”

The child’s crying worsened. The woman caught him staring, and smiled.

“She is a fighter, that one.”

Gabriel paused. “What about that one?” He gestured to the one she was dabbing gently with a rag. “Does it have parents?”

“She,” she corrected him. “And no, she has no parents, but she is a fighter. However, I fear what she is fighting is too strong. She will not last the night.”

“May I hold her?” He asked.

“You will get sick, like her. You will die.”

Gabriel remained silent. Eventually, the woman was led away by the calls of another patient in the tent opposite. He was left alone in the room with the infant. As he knelt by her bedside, peering over her, he noticed the blood staining her face and sheets. He let his hand hover over her nose and mouth; there was a faint trace of breath, though the nurse was right. She did not have long. With a quick look over his shoulder, he scooped up the baby and flitted quickly back to his bunker.

He lay the listless thing on the table, as gently as he could. His thoughts flickered back to Sam’s words, scratching at his conscience like some desperate, dying creatures. His mind also wandered to his younger siblings: the distortion of Castiel’s wings and the exhaustion on Anna’s face. He cupped the baby’s head in his hand, sending her into a deep, peaceful sleep. Peeling back the blanket she was swaddled in, he pressed his blade to her chest. His tears left spots of clean, dark skin amongst the crusted blood. Before he cut deeply, he carved the mark shown in the spell just above where her heart was. He steeled himself, and as quickly as he could, he drove the blade into her, swiftly cutting through her ribcage and severing the arteries holding her heart in place. As he lifted it out, it was barely beating, and filled no more space than the palm of his hand. He kept her in her sleeping state until he felt all her organs shut down, then wrapped her back up in her blanket. With her chest covered, she could almost be asleep.

The heart in his hand felt too hot, so he dropped it quickly into a bowl. He pulled a meat mallet from the drawer, and began to pound it, trying to stop his tears from landing in the bowl. When it was done his hands were stained with blood, and he had begun to let out small, hiccupping sobs. He quickly composed himself- time was limited- and arrived back at the Men of Letters bunker with the bowl and the bag of ingredient, placing them heavily on the table in the library. He had expected at least some kind of immediate reaction, but was disappointed; all four had their eyes glued to the T.V., with the exception of Balthazar, who they had placed on a couch nearby, where they could watch him.

On the silver screen- though in fact the T.V. looked as though they had dug it up out from deep in the belly of the bunker, and therefore appeared to have been plucked straight out of the 1960s- a newswoman was describing the chaos caused by a freak tornado in Michigan, with the death toll apparently sitting at about 180 currently, with another 50 missing.

Anna spoke first. “He’s started.”

“Then we better catch up.” It was only then any of them seemed to realise he was here. With their attention now on him, he proceeded to put together the spell, being careful not to allow them to see the list of ingredients.

“What is that?” Sam gestured to the bloody bowl.

Gabriel paused, but quickly covered for himself. “A lamb’s heart, pounded.”

“That’s disgusting,” Dean added.

The cold knot in Gabriel’s stomach tightened even further. He felt as though he could still feel the warmth of the girl’s blood on his hands and wrists, felt the weight of her heart in his palm. He watched the bright red colour of her blood fade as he added the other ingredients, eventually forming a thick, green and altogether unappealing paste.  

Finally, he made a small incision on his wrist, and let the blood drip onto a spoon. Gabriel was not entirely sure how much to take, given the warning his dealer had given him, but decided he was definitely not a lower-level angel, and piled on a heaping tablespoon.

“Down the hatch,” he said, choking towards the end on the putrid taste of the stuff. He couldn’t really put it into words, but he could definitely taste the blood in it. For a few, brief moments, nothing happened. Just as Dean was about to make some quip about this, Gabriel’s body began to scream with pain, and, although he could not hear anything over the ringing in his head, he expected he was making an appropriately painful sound. It felt as though fire was running through his entire body, igniting in his bone marrow and travelling then through his veins and arteries, his organs and then engulfing his flesh and wings. The pain was worst in his grace, but with each stabbing wave he felt his strength growing.

Eventually the agony subsided, and he awoke on the floor, the other four standing over him and Sam gently shaking his shoulder. “Are you ok?” he asked.

“Uuuh,” Gabriel hesitated, “yes? Actually, yeah, I am.”

Anna reached for his hand to help him up. “Do you feel any better?”

Gabriel tested his wings; they felt better than they had in ages; he could feel the strength coursing through them and through the rest of his body and, most importantly, his grace.

“Actually,” he said, “I feel perfect.”

“If you don’t mind saying so yourself,” Dean added. Gabriel let out an involuntary laugh, but he felt so good he didn’t even care.

“You guys need to try this,” Gabriel gestured to Cas and Anna.

“Will it hurt?” Cas looked concerned.

“Yes.” Gabriel wasn’t about to sugar coat it for him. Castiel looked resigned, Anna eager and determined.

“How much do we take?” she asked.

“Uuuh. Not too much. Large amounts can be dangerous to lower level angels. No offence,” he added.

“Ok.” Anna reached her hand out to Gabriel. He took it, gently, and made a small cut near her wrist, allowing a few droplets to land on the spoon, then scooping up an amount of the concoction that he sincerely hoped was safe, and handed the spoon to Anna.

“Spoon full of sugar,” she said as she downed it. It had much the same effect on her as it had had on Gabriel, but it was over soon. When she rose, Gabriel could see the blush had returned to her cheeks, and she once again sported her proud stance.

She then handed the spoon to Cas. “Rinse and repeat.” Cas obeyed, with a similar result.

Gabriel took the spoon from him as he helped him up. “How do you feel?” He looked to both of them.

“Fine,” Anna replied. “My wings are a little achy, but other than that I’m good. Full power.”

“Cas?” Dean asked, genuine concern in his voice. “Are you ok?” Dean walked forward to steady Cas, though he probably didn’t need it.

“Yes,” Cas replied, voice husky. “My wings don’t seem to be completely fixed, but I think I could fly on them.”

“I’ll fix them up completely later,” Gabriel said, though he wasn’t sure either of them noticed. Cas looked like he wanted nothing more than to just collapse into Dean and never get up. Dean looked as though there was nothing more he wanted either. Gabriel caught the stare from Anna.

“What do we do about Balthazar?” Sam cut through the moment.

“Same thing we did to the rest of us,” Gabriel replied as he set the bowl down next to where the other angel was asleep on the couch. He drew more blood from Balthazar’s wrist, and shoved the mixture into his mouth. Angels can’t choke, so hopefully he would be ok. After a few moments he spluttered to life, looking around maniacally, as one does when being brought back from the dead. There was a brief pause, then Balthazar welcomed the world with one simple, elegant phrase: “Bloody hell.”

“Welcome to Hotel California, ‘bout time you checked in,” Dean greeted him characteristically.

The room was very quiet and still for a number of breaths. Balthazar sat frozen in his seat. Then, quite suddenly, he lunged as Cas, managing to deal him a pretty decent blow across his cheek, until Anna and Gabriel were able to subdue him. Dean rushed to Cas’s side, touching his face tenderly and fretting about him in a way very uncharacteristically affectionate for Dean, a state Gabriel had only ever seen him in previously when Sam was injured, upset or in danger. Balthazar was heaving in Gabriel’s grasp, shouting a series of profanities in Castiel’s direction. He considered clamping his hand over his mouth to stop him, but figured it was probably best to let him get it all out as soon as possible.

Castiel, his hand on Dean for support, was apologising at every break in Balthazar’s words. The tortured look on his face confirmed to Gabriel that he was genuine. Eventually, Anna managed to sooth him enough to get him to sit down. She sat next to him, partly to comfort him, but Gabriel expected also to keep him from going for Cas again.

The next five hours seemed as though they were days. Gabriel, Sam, Cas and Dean managed to get the other two caught up on everything they had missed. Anna knew some-Sam and Dean had told her a bit in the car before they had to escape from the cops- but for the most part they were both in the dark about everything. The storytellers were unfortunately tired, and their words kept jumping around, adding bits here and there they had missed, finishing each other’s sentences and answering the many questions fired at them, but eventually they felt as though they had covered everything.

“So what do we do now?” Anna jumped straight into business. Gabriel had to admit, he had never really noticed her or any of the other younger angels before she fell, but due to those events being so rare in those days, as soon as she did the news quickly travelled to him. He had visited her, in the hospital in which she was born shortly after she entered the world in her human form.

She lay in a crib amidst a sea of others just like it. Some of the babies wriggling about in them were crying at their top of their lungs, others were fast asleep. He had read the tag on her foot, proclaiming her name to be Anna. He watched her as she lay before him. She wasn’t asleep, but she wasn’t wriggling around or crying like the others. She simply stared up at him peacefully, a tuft of red hair sticking out from under her bonnet. Gabriel remembered a feeling of intense envy. She was human. She had gotten out of Heaven alive, and had landed into the arms of two loving parents. She would go to school, grow up, find love and experience everything that he could never have. He also felt an odd urge to protect her. It came as a strange sensation; angels were not made to feel such things. That was the realm of humanity.

Sam brought Gabriel’s attention to the present. “We keep looking for ways to stop Amara.”

“What about Lucifer?” Balthazar spoke up.

Sam began to speak, but was interrupted by Gabriel. “We leave that alone for now.”

“Gabriel,” Anna spoke this time. “It took the power of four archangels and God to put Amara away last time. How are we supposed to match that?” It wasn’t said in desperation, but rather in inspiration; a proposition instead of a hopeless plea.

“We’ll find a way.” Gabriel knew it wasn’t the answer she wanted, but despite her grit and intelligence, ultimately Anna did not know Lucifer as Gabriel did. It was easy not to realise his strength when all one had heard was stories, or recounts of the destruction he left in his wake. However, only once one comes to truly know his brother, as only he and the archangels and God did, does a true appreciation of the danger he brings and the power and malice he harbours begin to form in one’s mind. The pain Lucifer caused was deep and excruciating, yet at the same time subtle, and it was never simply physical. Lucifer could place a psychological, a physical, an emotional and a spiritual hold on you all at once and as soon as he entered your life, sometimes before it.

“Look,” he continued, “it isn’t going to be easy, we all know that. We may not all make it out, we all know that. But no one in this room is giving up. We will work with what is within our means. We’re going to need to seek out information from before these four walls though. The Men of Letters have a good collection, but they’re not the only word on this stuff, and there’s troves of information they didn’t even know about. Sam, Dean, keep looking through the stuff in here, see if there is anything you missed. Anna, I want you searching in libraries and museums in the Middle East, there’s a lot there, and don’t forget to check any mosques. Balthazar, start looking at the same kind of stuff, but further north, start with Britain. Cas and I are going to hit the Vatican. All ok?”

There was a synonymous agreement. Gabriel stood up, and, placing a hand on Cas shoulder, whisked them both away.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The angels spend some quality wing-care time, while Gabriel makes another move on Sam. P

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so everyone knows, I've been drawing the angel's wings over on my deviantART, so please go check that out to see a visual of their different wings! 
> 
> http://themidnightparade.deviantart.com/

Heaven, before Lucifer’s fall:

Gabriel sat amongst the flowers of a meadow in the Garden, next to his three older brothers. The sun was high in the sky, the air warm but with a slight breeze, carrying the scent of the flowers to their nostrils. He watched as Michael groomed Raphael’s wings, smoothing the messy patches and carefully pulling out moulting feathers, letting them fly away in the wind. Raphael’s wings were mostly a steely, almost blue grey, with silver tips and patches throughout. Michael’s were even more beautiful, three sets, largely a pure, pearly white, with gold wing tips and highlights. Lucifer, however, was by far the most beautiful of all. It was something no one Gabriel knew had ever tried to deny. Lucifer, like Michael, also had three sets, but his were a deep, shining blue-black, with defined golden wing tips, and stripes of gold throughout. They were slightly larger than Michael’s too, something Gabriel had always gotten the feeling annoyed Michael, though of course he would never say so; God always insisted that he had made them equal.

As Gabriel watched them flex their wings in the sunlight, metallic feathers gleaming, he could not help but feel somewhat inadequate. His were certainly not ugly- they were far more beautiful than some of the younger angels- but next to his older brother’s they had always seemed rather drab in Gabriel’s eyes. They were a deep, warm brown, almost black, with a slightly lighter, but still deep, shade of brown towards the tops, with various copper feathers spread throughout.  

After watching Michael groom Raphael’s and Lucifer groom his own, Gabriel began to try and copy them, though he wasn’t entirely sure what they were doing. He attempted to groom his own anyway, but really only stroked them absentmindedly. He started as he felt someone else touch them. Looking around, he saw it was Lucifer.

“Here,” his brother guided his wing closer to the ground, flattening it out across his lap, “this is how you do it.”

Gabriel watched intently, half concentrating on what Lucifer was doing, but also enjoying the feel of it.

“You’re pretty bad at this, hey?”

“What do you mean?” Gabriel asked.

“Your wings are a mess. Haven’t you ever cleaned them up? You’ve got loose feathers everywhere.”

Lucifer set about picking the loose feathers out for Gabriel. Eventually, after observing his brother for a while, Gabriel joined in, albeit half-heartedly. He tried not to let envy colour his vision as he admired Lucifer’s wings.

“We can’t all look the same, Gabriel,” Lucifer broke his train of thought. “God made us equal, but he didn’t make us the same. Your wings are just fine. None of the other angels have copper in their wings.”

It was the closest to a compliment Gabriel had ever received from Lucifer. With his confidence boosted, he reached out to touch his brother’s wings. They were the softest things he had ever felt, like cool silk but with the warmth and depth of a wolf’s fur. He ran his hands through the feathers as Lucifer stretched them around Gabriel. The two remained like that for what seemed like hours, while the memory remained in Gabriel’s mind for the rest of his life.

Present Day, Brunwald, Switzerland:

“What are we doing here?” Castiel queried, his brow furrowed.

“Sit down,” Gabriel replied, seating himself on a nearby log.

Castiel hesitated, but eventually joined him. “What’s going on?”

“Your wings,” Gabriel continued, “Show them to me. Did the paste stuff fix them entirely?”

Cas fell quiet. “I don’t know.”

Gabriel studied his face. He seemed reluctant, embarrassed of something and possibly a little sad. “Well… do you want me to check? If they’re hurting or anything you need to get them fixed.”

There was a brief silence. “They do hurt a little. I guess that paste couldn’t fix the way my wings look.”

The answer suddenly dawned on Gabriel; it came with a pang of nostalgia. He let the silence hang as he thought of the best way to word his response.

“Look,” he started, “you don’t have to show me if you don’t want to, but I’m sure they can’t look to bad.” That appeared to be the wrong answer, as Cas shifted his position awkwardly.

“Or,” he tried again, “even if they do, I won’t judge, believe me. Besides, there’s no point sitting back on your ass twiddling your thumbs, they’ll only get worse; they do require some maintenance.”

Castiel let out a defeated sigh. “Very well,” he conceded.

As soon as he moved his wings onto a plane at which Gabriel could see them easily, the cause for his hesitation was immediately apparent. They were in need of some serious work; the feathers were patchy, their healthy, glossy sheen gone, matted in some parts, with blood and god-knows-what-else, while in other areas it was clear it had been a significant amount of time since the shedding feathers had been removed. Gabriel did his best to cover up his surprise, though he doubted Cas was fooled.

“Well,” he said, in the kindest voice he could, “they do need a bit of work, but it’s nothing we can’t fix.” He hoped he sounded reassuring. “When was the last time you preened them?” He asked, as casually as he had managed; they needed more than a bit of work, but he didn’t want to freak Cas out.

Castiel looked sheepish. “Well, I can’t say I’ve had a chance in a long time. Are you sure we should be wasting time on this?”

Gabriel sighed. “You can’t fly like this; you’re not going to be anywhere near as fast as you should be.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Castiel conceded, and relaxed his wings, allowing Gabriel to begin working on them. He stared out over the sea of flowers and grass before them while his brother undertook a more thorough inspection.  

“This might take a few sessions, buddy, but we’ll do what we can now,” Gabriel told him. Castiel didn’t respond, so Gabriel began to pick out the loose feathers. While Castiel’s wings were in a poor state at the moment, they would have been a lovely colour in full health, and quite beautiful when well-kept, especially for a low-ranking angel. They were the same dull colour that Lucifer’s moulted feathers were, but nowhere near as large and with no metallic spots; that was a feature reserved only for the archangels. It would take some time to return his wings to their former glory, and likely several grooming sessions, but Gabriel knew how uncomfortable it could be to have poorly groomed wings, and was determined to do right by Cas.

Cas watched forlornly as his feathers flew away in the wind. “Will they all grow back?”

“They already have. That’s why they hurt, there’s both the new and the old feathers stuck in here.”

“Oh.”

There was a period of silence.

“Do you think Balthazar will forgive me?” Cas asked, quietly.

Gabriel thought as he continued with his task. “I think he has it in him. You just need to give him time. He’ll understand eventually. We all make mistakes. I’ve made more than a few in my time.”

Castiel made a face that indicated he agreed.

“I am sorry, though,” Gabriel added, somewhat awkwardly; talking about feelings had never been his strong point (nurture before nature, he guessed). “I could have been a better person. A better brother.”

“We all could have.” At that, Castiel began to laugh. Gabriel watched in confusion for a few moments, then gave up guessing and asked.

“Why are you laughing?”

Cas said nothing, with a small smile still on his face. Gabriel was still confused, but it was better than a frown and he could roll with that.

They both remained in quiet contemplation for a while longer, until Gabriel decided it was time to get into action; he had removed a lot of the feathers, enough that Cas would be able to keep up with him.

“Alright. I think that’s all we can get done for now, but I’ll do some more later. Time to go and actually get some shit done, or I guarantee Sam will be on both our asses.” He ended that with a wink.

Cas looked thoroughly confused.

Present Day, The Vatican:

They flew straight into the secret archives. The rows of bookshelves and cases stretched for what seemed like an eternity in all directions.

Castiel’s furrowed brow remained plastered onto his face. “How are we supposed to sort through all of this in time? The answer could be anywhere.”

“Skim read. Key words: “the”, “darkness” and “trap” and/or “kill”. I’ll take the southern end, while you take the northern end.” With that, Gabriel set off on his own tangent, skipping through the files as quickly as he could, faster than any human could hope too and faster than the CCTV cameras could pick up on.

He had decided as soon as he picked the Vatican as a starting point that information on his dear Aunty Amara was not the only thing he was looking for. He knew all the signs of his brother’s existence and the path of destruction he would leave; such knowledge had quite literally been woven into the fabric that he was made of. He also knew a decent amount about the Mark of Cain; he knew why it was there, he knew what it had done to his brother and he knew the consequences of its removal. He also knew that it did not have the power to change someone so much that once removed it would continue to have a direct impact on its holder; Dean was a prime example.  

However, Lucifer had lived a very different life to Dean. God liked to pretend the Mark was the only thing that turned Lucifer into what he is today. Gabriel knew that this was total bullshit. God panicked and locked him away; He never once tried to fix him, but swept the whole thing under a highly secure, magically sealed metaphorical carpet. This had led to an accumulation of evil dust and lint bunnies on Lucifer’s mind and grace, something that wasn’t easily vacuumed off. Gabriel was left with the decidedly mind-boggling task of somehow restraining Lucifer and then, provided he could hold him long enough, turning around eons of pent-up hate and anger, preferably without anyone finding out until it was done.

Gabriel came to the conclusion that it was probably best to take it one day at a time, and slipped a couple of extra books into his jacket for his own personal use, while filling his arms with precarious stacks of others, the only criteria being some mention, however obscure, of the word “darkness” or other close synonyms, such as, perhaps, Celine Dion or Donald Trump.

It was at that point Cas showed up behind him, his own arms piled high with an assortment of extremely old and valuable looking tomes- the ones that would probably cost you a few thousand and possibly a jail sentence if you stole them- with only his eyes and constantly wrinkled brow showing above them.

When Gabriel returned to the Bunker, the only other soul in the room was the taller Winchester, Sam; Cas had gone off to help Anna in her search. Gabriel took this as a sign from the gods that tonight he was destined to score some action.

Placing the books down on the table, he made a point to lean over in Sam’s direction, just enough to give him a glimpse down his shirt. Unfortunately, this was lost to him, his eyes remaining glued to the book in front of him.

Gabriel tried another approach. As smoothly as he could, Gabriel moved around the table to Sam’s seat, placing one hand next to the book he was reading and one on the back of his chair.

“Hey, Sambo,” he started, kicking himself as soon as the words came out. Couldn’t he have thought of a pickup line that was just _slightly_ better? Or even counted as a pick-up line?

Sam looked up at him quizzically, but didn’t make any attempt to lean away.

“Uuuh, hi there, G-Gabriel,” Sam spoke with trepidation, his tired mouth stumbling across the name. “Sorry, I’m tired. I can’t even see straight.”

This wasn’t exactly going as Gabriel had planned. In an attempt to break up the awkwardness, he sat himself down on the table next to Sam’s hand, allowing his leg to brush it ever so slightly as he seated himself.

Sam then surprised him. “Can I call you Gabe? Or at least when I’m running purely on coffee and whiskey?”

“You know with eyes like those, you could call me Pamela and I wouldn’t mind.” Now Gabriel was gaining some traction.

Sam chuckled at the response, sending an involuntary smile across Gabriel’s face, wider than the one he’d already put on for flirting.

“Ok, Pamela,” Sam looked up at him, with an unfamiliar twinkle in his eye, “how did you go in terms of source material?”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Do you ever stop working? Chill a little.”

“The world’s ending.”

This was a good point.

“That is a very good point,” Gabriel shot back, moving his hand to cover the pages of the book beside him. “But there’s another very good point, right, here,” with that, Gabriel slid his hand off the book and placed it on Sam’s chest, and, before either could regret it, he planted a kiss, light and delicate, on Sam’s lips. He tasted like coffee and liquor, but was clean and smooth; Gabriel could feel the heat emanating from his body, relishing the warmth that crept into his own mouth.

He had barely pulled back when Cas and Anna arrived, their arms full to the brim of even more books and scrolls and every other kind of manuscript Gabriel could think of. His heart sank as he took in the full scope of the reading he was going to have to do; there were way too many for him to talk his way out of reading at least a half dozen, though he knew if Sam asked him to do more, he would search them quicker than if he had been offered a night with Scar-Jo and an endless supply of whipped cream and chocolate fondue.

Still, as he settled down to his task, his lips continued to tingle with warmth, and he couldn’t hold back a smile when he saw Sam sheepishly licking his lips as he hurried off to bed.


	16. Chapter 16

Gabriel had remained in the library with Anna for the rest of the night; Cas had buzzed off somewhere to do even more nerdy things like collecting books, like the little nerdy dude he was. Gabriel also suspected it may have had something to do with his wings being fixed; if Gabriel himself hadn’t been able to fly in months and was then suddenly given a new lease like that he knew the Winchesters would have been seeing far less of him than they were currently of Cas.

Gabriel decided to take the opportunity their solitude provided to study Anna in more detail. She had no worry lines across her face, which was more than any of the rest of them could say. Instead she seemed peaceful, though there was definitely something bubbling underneath, a fire over which she had a complete and delicate control of. She had always been one of their best leaders, before her fall. Where the others would miss things, she would see them, and when others would give up, she would persist. He remembered her fall very clearly, though he had not been in Heaven at the time. In those days, a fall was treated in the most serious manner possible, and came with a finite punishment, one that would be carried out by one of their most skilled assassins.

March, 1985, Northwestern Ohio:

Gabriel sat high in an oak tree overlooking a bare clearing. The moon hung high above the forest, illuminating the landscape before him clearly. He was there for two reasons: one, the stars were particularly pretty tonight. Two, he had heard some interesting scuffling occurring from around this area, angelic in nature. Angels had been stationed on Earth for thousands of years, but under all circumstances they were required to remain hidden and quiet until the time came, which would not happen for another twenty to thirty years.

It should be noted that Gabriel had been playing this game for a long time now, and he knew well what the initial wafts of angelic rebellion smelt like, and he was getting a nose-full now. There had been a fight, between angels, recently. Gabriel had checked the scene out before the clean-up crew could get there, a few days prior. A couple hours north of their current location, two angels of relative status had been found dead in an alley, throats cut and wings charred into the cement. The assailant had fled the scene of the crime before Gabriel arrived, but there was no doubt in his mind that they too had been angelic, and that they were definitely defying orders from Heaven. By this point Gabriel’s curiosity was thoroughly piqued; it was always worth watching what became of rebellious angels. Historically, they generally became significant players.

With this in mind, Gabriel at this point had no desire for the fallen angel to be caught; he would very much prefer to check them out himself and draw his own conclusions about their future importance. Hence, Gabriel swiftly swept up what they had left behind, and decided to remain in the immediate vicinity, and observe the future proceedings carefully.

He had often wondered what it was about rebellious angels that made them react differently from the others. He decided it definitely wasn’t a lack of love; he himself had the potential to feel enormous amounts of love: for his family, from both of his pantheons, for the various lovers he had had throughout his life, and for the people around him, the human race. Lucifer had also been capable of extreme love, for his brothers and their Father. Gabriel considered that the defining characteristic may have been too much love, but that didn’t quite sit right either. Gabriel left this question as yet another in a vast void of an infinite amount of questions that he would never know the answer to, but would no doubt ponder for the rest of his life.

The next few days had been quiet, but as Gabriel stared out over the clearing before him, he a familiar friction filled the air. Above him, there was a distant clap, much like thunder. His eyes glued to the sky, his line of sight tracked a ball of glowing grace as it plummeted to earth in a slow, quiet arc. It hit the ground with an enormous crack, disappearing into the earth. For a moment, nothing happened. However, after several seconds, a faint rumbling could be heard from the land it landed on, and out of said patch of earth a tree suddenly broke out, hundreds of years of growth spilling out towards the sky in a matter of seconds.

Gabriel didn’t bother approaching the tree. Instead, he opted to continue on his way, and keep an ear and an eye open for any so-called “miracle births” in the area; by this point, Gabriel knew precisely where such events led. It was only a matter of time.

A quick flap of his wings later, and Gabriel was surrounded by the noisy hum of the nearest pub. A cold beer in his hand, he allowed his eyes to wander, generally in the direction of the several very fine-looking women scattered around the bar. However, his eyes eventually came to rest on a plainly dressed man, whom sat quietly in a dark corner of the room. Gabriel recognized him instantly as his older brothers’ favorite assassin, and in Gabriel’s opinion, overall one of his least favorite siblings, Virgil. Looking over his outfit, it occurred to Gabriel that the guy could use a lesson in covertness; he was even wearing a black trench coat. He could think of fewer things that screamed “assassin” more.

Gabriel had never been one to do unnecessary work. He was a master at determining the easiest way to get what he wanted. He was also very aware that most angels held values that, in regards to work ethic, were the exact opposite of his. In other words, Virgil would stop at nothing until he found the angel he was looking for, and to achieve the same goal, all Gabriel would have to do is coast along, quick enough to keep his scent in his nostrils but not so quick as to exert excessive effort; it was a master plan.

Men of Letters Bunker, Present Day:

Eventually morning came, though the only sign of it was the hands of the clock; he windowless Bunker gave no hint of the growing light outside. Cas and Balthazar had returned from their pilgrimage across Europe, both with wobbling piles of texts and manuscripts spilling out of their arms.

It took longer than usual for the Winchesters to rise, though Gabriel was quite sure 4:00 am was still not a typical time for humans to awake. Both were dead on their feet, but perked up as they got some food and coffee into them. Dean flicked on the news, to “see if Amara had broken the world yet”.

The world was not entirely broken, but a small portion of it was on fire; wild fires were sweeping through Salem, Massachusetts. Gabriel recognized the historical reference, and knew for a fact that it was deliberate, and that the stench that filled his nose was not that of The Darkness.

Salem, Massachusetts, Present Day:

A plume of embers went up as the last pillar of the First Church of Salem keeled over. The rest lay in ruins, smoking, amidst the burning town. The smoke didn’t clog Gabriel’s throat, nor did the fire scorch his skin. He walked towards a patch of ground bereft of embers but smoking lightly. His eyes followed its shape, tracing the outline of the feathers, the wing-tips over a metre long. It hadn’t been the falling pillar that had killed the angel before him, though its right arm and wing now lay beneath it. The angels’ neck lay split open, cut right to the bone. Its blade, now sooty, lay clutched tightly in its left hand; they had likely fought bravely, as they had been raised, but Gabriel knew his brother; he would have cut the other angel down in a heartbeat.

He looked up. The sky could be seen in patches, peeking out from behind the smoke. It was blue, the hot sun beating down to scorch the landscape further. Gabriel couldn’t fix the damage, and he couldn’t bring the angel back. But as he raised his hand, eyes squeezed shut in concentration, clouds gathered above Salem, and rain began to fall on the town, dampening the smoke and causing the sparks and flames to sizzle out. Before the smoke could clear entirely, he gently scooped the dead angels’ body up in his arms, extricating it from the ruins of the church.

He lay the body down in a clearing on the side of a mountain overlooking the town, where no rain fell. Gabriel began to pile dry wood on and around the corpse, which lay in a patch of bare earth. Seating himself on a nearby rock, the pile ignited. His eyes followed the smoke as it trailed upwards, dissipating into the blue sky overhead, being blown gently towards the rain clouds now hanging thick and black over the town.

He sat in silence for about another twenty minutes, as the flames devouring Salem began to die. Behind him, he heard a faint flutter of wings. He waited for his visitor to speak first. After a brief pause, they did.

“So that was you,” a female voice spoke, “the rain clouds.”

Gabriel tilted his head slightly toward her as Anna came into view on his left. “Won’t bring them all back, you know,” she continued. “They think the death count is in the thousands.”

He didn’t want to hear that, but he was glad he did. She came to sit beside him, and gazed into the flames.

“Do you know who he was?” She asked.

“No.”

“His name was Amitiel. He was in the garrison I captained, with Castiel and Balthazar. He was a good soldier, a good angel.” None of what she was saying was making him feel better, but he expected that was the point.

“You know I’d never even seen an archangel until Michael killed me.” She looked over to him; he could feel her eyes on him, and couldn’t help himself but to look back.

Her eyes were a brilliant green, but sad, and possibly angry.

“You’re not missing much,” he replied, his voice cracking on the final word.

Heaven, During Lucifer’s Fall:

What sounded like thunder roared in the dark clouds around him. His brothers’ screams filled the air; with every blow another clap sounded. Gabriel and Raphael flanked Michael, swords in hands and wings clad in armor, though as of yet neither had landed a blow. Truthfully, neither wanted to.

Gabriel wanted to turn away, to close his eyes and block his ears to the chaos, but despite all his strength, his eyes stayed glued. Anguish and rage contorted Michael and Lucifer’s faces; Lucifer fought desperately, but Michael kept the upper hand. Their blood sprayed into the air as each blow was laid. Gabriel remembered with striking clarity how clean and shining the chains Michael was weaving around Lucifer were; they reflected whatever light shone through the storm onto the faces of his two older brothers.

At this point both their faces were stained with tears and blood, though this aspect was to be strictly omitted in future tellings of the story. Gabriel found himself crying too, but didn’t bother to look over to Raphael to see if he had tears on his cheeks as well. It was at that point that Gabriel first experienced rage; rage at Michael for doing this, rage at his Father for commanding him to, and rage at himself for not being able to intervene. As he watched Lucifer fall through the air, defeated, disappearing into the dark depths of his cage, Gabriel could feel what hope he had had fall with him, and knew in that moment that his place was no longer here in Heaven; it was down there on Earth, in the wide, confusing middle ground; in no-man’s land.

Salem, Massachusetts’s, Present Day: 

“Is that why you left? You must have a unique perspective,” she continued, her voice quieter now, her features softer.

A snort escaped Gabriel’s mouth. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“The only thing I was ever taught about Lucifer was that he was made of pure evil; he was the figurehead against which we struggled. But he was something completely different to you, wasn’t he?”

Gabriel stayed silent for a moment. “You didn’t miss much.”

Anna suddenly jerked forward.

“You ok?” He asked.

“Dean’s calling me. And you.”

With a sigh, Gabriel rose from his seat on the rock, holding his hand out to Anna. She took it.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get a little steamy between Gabriel and Sam, and Cas gets a little love advice.

Men of Letters Bunker, Present Day:

“Where the hell have you two been?” Dean asked, eloquently.

 “Busy,” said Gabriel, shorter than he intended.

Anna fixed his social faux-pa with a light, “We were helping put out the fires in Salem.”

“What you’re doing charity work now?” Sam shoved Dean as soon as the words left his mouth, which prompted a “What?!” from Dean.

“Dude, people died,” Sam reminded him. This quieted Dean down, though not for long.

“Listen, far as I can tell this research stuff is going pretty slow. I just had a call from an old friend of Bobby’s, he says he might have a case going down in California. I say we check it out,” Dean was already grabbing his coat, which was kind of his cue to Sam to get packing.

“Don’t you think we have enough to do here?” Sam remained seated.

“Dude. People died,” Dean managed to say this with a perfect deadpan.

“You’re not supposed to laugh about that shit, Dean,” Sam called as he got up to follow his brother. Just as he was about to leave, he turned towards the rest of them. “Listen, sorry about this, will you guys be ok?”

“Peachy, Sambo,” Gabriel made sure to accompany this with a wink, and smiled as he saw Sam’s cheeks turn red. As he turned around, he saw Cas and Balthazar’s heads in the books, though Anna definitely looked like she’d noticed, and threw him an approving look. Gabriel responded with his signature eye-brow wiggle, which brought a chuckle out of her.

“So what exactly is going on?” He heard Sam’s voice coming towards them down the hall.

“Whole bunch of people keep dying,” Dean replied.

“I think you’ll find that happens pretty frequently,” Gabriel couldn’t resist the quip, and laughed at his own joke. He noticed a smile on Sam’s face, though Dean looked somewhat less amused. Like the mature older sibling that he was, he shot Gabriel a snarky look.

“I mean people keep dying in a shit ton of weird ways. Get this,” he gestured to Sam, “A charity worker got her hair caught in a snow-cone machine, somehow managed to crush her whole head. Another guy, an investment banker, impaled himself in the eye with the key to a safe. And get this, this one I love, some chick who fires people for a living; burnt to death on her own barbeque.”

Even Gabriel had to admit that sounded a bit weird. It also kind of put him off snow-cones, but he was pretty certain the affliction was temporary.

Carmel-by-the-Sea, Present Day:

A few hours later, Gabriel could confirm that the affliction was, in fact, very temporary as he sucked on a pink and blue snow-cone. It was sweltering hot in Carmel, and the sticky coloured syrup had begun to drip down Gabriel’s hand. He had agreed to speed the case up by carting the brothers around when they needed it, and doing his own thing the rest of the time. Cas and Anna had remained at the Bunker to do research like the feathered little nerds they were, while Balthazar had continued his search for reading material in France, though Gabriel was pretty sure he was searching a disproportionate amount of bars and strip-clubs to actual libraries.

The brothers were talking to some witnesses of the snow-cone accident across the street, where the charity fundraiser continued, unperturbed by the gruesome death that had befallen it the previous week. At this point the brothers were thinking witch, though it didn’t sit quite right with Gabriel. However, having absolutely no evidence to back this uncertainty up, he decided to keep his mouth shut.

In actuality Gabriel was really just waiting for an opportunity to get Sam alone again. Despite all the other crazy shit going through his mind at the moment, he was finding it hard to keep Sam Winchester out of the mess; it had gotten to the point where Gabriel was actually having to make a serious effort not to get a hard-on whenever he did stuff that, for whatever reason, lit up that fire in Gabriel’s pants, a sensation he was very aware of at that particular moment. He was also very aware that Dean would most certainly not approve, which, he was sure, would prove to be a significant hindrance.

Gabriel tried not to stare at Sam’s shoulders, or his legs, or really any of him at all, as he and Dean walked back towards Gabriel. He noticed Dean was also holding a snow-cone, though he had gone completely for blue, something Gabriel personally felt was an abhorrent practice; you didn’t get the whole experience with just one colour. He told Dean this, to which Dean launched into a vehement defense.

“Are you kidding me? Blue is the bomb. I’m not about to contaminate this blueberry goodness with red barf. It’s barbaric.”

“Alright,” Sam interjected, “zip up you two, I think we need to go check out the remaining sites. I say, we drop Dean off at the bank, Gabe, how about you and I check out the rich lady’s house?”

Gabriel could not have thought up a better plan himself, and immediately whisked Dean away, and returned to sweep Sam off his feet. Sam, unfortunately, did not agree with this method of transport and blushed awkwardly when Gabriel suggested it.

When they arrived at the scene the place was still marked off with crime scene tape, with a few officers milling about. Gabriel quickly changed himself into a pretty damn sharp suit, and held out a badge alongside Sam. He was caught off guard when Sam spoke.

“You look pretty good in that thing, you know.” Sam threw him a sideways glance and a smile while he said it, but kept his gaze largely forward.

Gabriel paused for a moment. He had to admit, he was actually pretty taken aback; Sam hadn’t rejected his advances, but he hadn’t made any of his own moves either.

“Touché`,” Gabriel replied with a smile. This hadn’t been the kind of alone he had wanted, but they were away from Dean, and it was a start. As soon as they stepped into the house, they were greeted with the smell of a cloying, floral perfume, likely very expensive. The house was furnished and decorated with other, most likely equally costly, items. They followed the tape out to the back porch, where a ridiculously large barbeque sat charred to a crisp and wrapped in its own spool of tape. It was the kind with unnecessary grills and glowing parts, and a selection of dials which could not possibly all be useful.

Sam began circling it, checking behind it for hex bags and the like. Gabriel gave the area a quick going over as well, but was mostly staring at Sam’s ass. When Sam was done, he looked at Gabriel with a defeated look.

“Absolutely nothing. You find anything?”

Gabriel resisted the opportunity for a well-placed pick-up line, and shook his head; he needed to bide his time with Sam.

“Alright, well, what now?” Sam asked.

With this, he sidled up to Sam, surreptitiously checking around for any of the cops patrolling the place, and let his hand rest next to Sam’s hip.

“I can think of some things we could be doing,” he accompanied this with a wriggle of his eyebrows, and pressed closer to Sam. Sam stuttered, not coming out with any real intelligible answer. “Come on. It’ll be fun. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Gabriel continued, lowering his voice and moving his hand further down Sam’s body.

“W-what about Dean?” Sam replied, his voice shaky. Gabriel resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“What about him?”

“Well, what if he calls, what if he needs us?” Sam was starting to tense up under Gabriel’s touch and gaze, and began averting his eyes to a spot somewhere beside Gabriel’s head.

“Then we’ll go and help him. Sam,” he said, touching Sam’s cheek and gently tilting his gaze towards his own, “if Dean needs help, we’ll stop and go find him. He’ll call.”

“Stop-stop what?” Sam was breathless now, and they couldn’t go any further here, so Gabriel transported them to a more private location: Sam and Dean’s motel room.

They arrived on the bed, collapsing into one another. Before either could say anything, Gabriel pressed his lips to Sam’s, more forcefully than the last time, but not so hard as to hurt him. He was surprised when Sam began to part their mouths, reaching into Gabriel’s mouth with his tongue, grazing over his teeth, and sliding down his throat. Gabriel took the opportunity to explore Sam’s mouth in the same way, and let his hands cup Sam’s face, fingers tracing the lines of his cheekbones, the dip in his temple, and the fluttering of his eyes. Gabriel let out a deep moan, which seemed to rile Sam up even more; he cupped Gabriel’s neck with one hand, and his ass with the other. Taking this as a signal to advance, Gabriel shifted himself to allow his leg to press up gently to Sam’s crotch, and began to move in a rocking motion, feeling Sam harden more with every stroke.

Apparently this was going too far, as Sam broke contact and pushed Gabriel off of him.

“What’s wrong?” Gabriel asked, breathless.

Sam was about to reply, before a sharp pain shot through Gabriel’s mind, as well as the prayers of Dean, asking to be picked up from the bank.

“Shit,” he grabbed his head, “dammit. Dean’s done. He wants me to go get him,” he finished the sentence in a defeated tone.

“Yeah,” Sam replied, “you should go.”

This reply stung a bit, but he tried not to take it to heart, and left Sam to cool down by himself.

The Men of Letters Bunker, Present Day:

“What happened?” Anna asked, “I thought you were helping Sam and Dean?”

“I was, and I did. They’re just doing research in their room for now, they’ll call me when they need me.” Gabriel sat down in the chair opposite Anna. “Are we getting anywhere?”

The room was silent. All three looked tired; Anna was the most awake, flipping through pages methodically, but with deep circles under her eyes. Cas’ eyes were foggy, and stared into the space in front of the book before him, though he seemed to be failing to read the pages. Balthazar appeared to have given up entirely, and had his head resting on the table. The air around him exuded the smell of cheap alcohol and strippers, a perfume Gabriel had himself worn many times during times of crisis; so, basically, his whole life.

It occurred to Gabriel that what everyone needed was a little bit of _something_ to keep them going; Sam and Dean found it in their cases, Balthazar had tried to find it in sex and booze, Anna in the books and Cas in God-knows-what, but all seemed to have come up short. He felt a tug in his chest, a desire to give them what it was they needed. His mind scrambled for answers, though he found none, at least not any that would actually work for any extended period of time.

Gabriel found his thoughts shifting to Sam, but tried to guide them back to the task at hand. The glassiness of Cas’ eyes was really starting to get to him. Balthazar’s were shut, and Anna’s still had that flame behind them, though at the moment it burned dimly, but it was the emptiness of Castiel’s that piqued his attention. Gabriel rose from his seat slowly, and wandered off down the hall off the library. As he went, he opened various doors, but found none that were suitable. Instead he returned to the spot he’d been with Cas a few days ago in Brunwald.

He sat on the same log, and stared out over the field. It was dotted with bright yellows, purples and pinks, and led onto a pond, its waters as blue as the sky above it. He breathed in the crisp, clear air, letting it fill his vessel’s lungs. After a moment, he called Cas to him.

The younger angel arrived behind him. “What are we doing here again?”

“Sit down,” Gabriel gestured to the spot on the log beside him. “Your wings. Last time I saw them they still needed a bit of work. Come on, I saw you in there, you need a distraction.”

“A distraction is the last thing I need,” he replied, but sat anyway. “I can’t seem to concentrate on our work. My mind drifts away from it.”

“What does it drift to?”

“Nothing. It’s the only other state I seem to be able to achieve at this point.”

That definitely didn’t sound good. “Let me see your wings.”

Cas showed them to him with no resistance this time; they couldn’t be in a poorer state than the previous time. He noticed a difference immediately; there were fewer dull, tattered feathers, and the new, clean ones were poking through in places. Still, they would need some work.

Gabriel set about picking out the remaining molted feathers, smoothing down whatever new ones he could find. Most of the damage was further up on them; the lower wingtips were largely healthy and in place. He took the opportunity to study Cas’ face. His brow was not furrowed, but his eyes were still glassy, and no hint of a smile or a frown touched his lips. Gabriel would much have preferred him to be frowning, if not smiling. He decided to break the silence.

“I suppose it would be a bit rhetorical to ask what’s wrong.”

Cas tilted his head towards Gabriel, then looked back out to the meadow. “I suppose.”

“You need to find something to hold on to,” Gabriel replied.

“Like what? What do you mean?” Gabriel could hear the desperation in his voice, though he covered it well. That he had the strength to try was encouraging.

“Well,” Gabriel started, “family. Friends. A goal,” he hesitated before saying the next option, “Dean.”

That brought forward a little more emotion on Castiel’s face. He appeared nervous, eyes flitting to Gabriel and then back out to the field. He licked his lips and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Dean and I do share a very profound bond, yes,” Castiel’s voice was shaky.

Gabriel resisted a number of innuendos, and instead attempted to reply in a serious manner.

“I’d sure say so, the chemistry coming off of you two. I noticed it the second I saw you both in the same room.”

Castiel’s brow wrinkled, and his breathing increased. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Yes, you do. Look. I don’t know your romantic history,” at this, Castiel stiffened, “but a certain little spark lights up in your you-know-where when you see him, doesn’t it?”

Castiel didn’t move. Gabriel continued to probe.

“There’s nothing wrong with having feelings for him, Cas. This is good. Love keeps you going, makes you fight harder because now you have something worth fighting for, something more than the world.” At this, he stopped grooming Cas’ wings and tilted Cas’ face towards himself. “When you picture the world ending, remember that that means he goes too. Fight to keep him alive. And for fuck’s sake, tell him how you feel, ok?”

Cas was quiet for a while, though Gabriel could see the conflict on his face. “How?”

A smirk tugged at the corners of Gabriel’s lips.

“Now that is something I can help with.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: I've been away a long time and I am so sorry! Life has been crazy and I've had to make a few tough decisions, and just haven't been able to post. To make up for this though, there will be a bonus chapter before next week!

Gabriel, stooped low, rummaged around in the depths of his own bunker, while Cas stood rather awkwardly next to him in the already tiny space. It was a good thing neither of them needed to breathe, because there certainly wasn’t enough fresh air to keep two humans alive for the length of time they’d been in there.

“What are you looking for?” Cas sounded impatient. He moved to lean against the small, yet surprisingly sturdy, desk that occupied the right side of the room. “Dean doesn’t particularly care for material possessions.”

“He’ll care for this, trust me,” Gabriel’s voice resounded from within the clutter.

“How long have you had this place?”

Gabriel’s Bunker, 1860:

Gabriel knelt over the opening hatch to the bunker, as Kali stood over him, her eyes fixed on the night sky. The songs of the night-life resounded throughout the jungle around them; the deep, guttural moans of some big cat, accented perfectly by the shrill and steady hum of the crickets and the light, sharp calls of the night birds.

“How long will this take? What is so important to show me in a place like this?” Her tone was one of boredom, but there was an inclination of interest towards the end of her sentence.

“You’ll see,” Gabriel replied as he wrenched open the door and climbed inside. Kali remained planted very firmly in the ground above. “Come on,” he pushed, “locked in a small space with a ridiculously handsome man; it’ll be fun.”

She chuckled, and gracefully descended the short ladder. Casually, yet with equal grace, she leant delicately against the desk, its surface warm brown and shining with varnish, taking in her surroundings with bright but lidded eyes. After a careful scan, her gaze rested on him, and with a sharp inclination of an eyebrow, she asked in what seemed like a piercingly loud voice, with the thick walls of the bunker masking the sounds of the forest, “So? Aren’t you going to give me what I came for?”

Placing one hand behind his back, he rested the other on her waist, and wiggled his eyebrows, before producing a bottle of whiskey, likely ridiculously expensive and of a considerable age. Gabriel would never have picked Kali to be a whiskey drinker, and he definitely had not hidden his surprise well when she ordered one on their first real date.

“That is a good one,” she replied, a lively edge taking over her words. She looked straight into Gabriel’s eyes. “But it’s still not what I came for.”

Before Gabriel had a moment to be offended at the slight, she’d pushed him up against the desk he was rummaging under, and pressed her lips hard to his, for a long, not-unpleasant, moment, and pulled back just far enough for Gabriel to mutter: “That is a far better idea.”

Gabriel’s Bunker, Present Day: 

“What are we doing here?” Castiel stood uncomfortably close to Gabriel as he knelt down, shuffling through the general vicinity of the mangy desk to their right.

“We’re getting you laid, is what,” Gabriel responded, bluntly.

“I do not think these surroundings would arouse Dean. And I am not trying to get laid. I merely want a more official romantic bond and to confess my feelings to him.”

At this, Gabriel turned to look over at Cas. His face held that characteristic frown of confusion, while his head leaned sideways on its axis. He figured it probably wasn’t worth continuing with a sexual motive, and instead handed Cas only the whiskey, and not the lube; that he slipped nonchalantly inside his own jacket.

“I recognize this,” Cas said with a smile, “Dean loves whiskey. I mean, he has a taste for most forms of alcohol, but he drinks whiskey the most. Will this whiskey make Dean my romantic partner?” The question was genuine, as was the look of polite determination on his face. Gabriel held back a snort of laughter.

He instead simply said, “It will probably help.”

There was a brief period of silence, while Cas’ demeanor seemed to change.

“What if he says no?” It was an age-old question, and one Gabriel still couldn’t find the answer or the cure to, and was one that had been plaguing him a lot recently.

“Then he says no, and you have to respect that. Personally, I think you have a pretty good chance of something, but you can’t force him to be with you. You can initiate, but after that, the next step is one he has to take; you can’t take it for him. You two have been friends a long time though now, I wouldn’t be too worried. There’s more to it than whiskey though.”

Gabriel’s Bunker, 1860:

“So, who says you need whiskey to have a good time,” Kali drawled into his neck as they perched precariously on the then-new desk, wrapped messily in each other’s arms and now-disheveled clothing.

“Idiot tricksters who know jack about love-making,” he smiled down at her.

She giggled, “I wouldn’t say that.” Kali smiled up at him, biting her lip. Quite suddenly, but with a dreamy look on her face, she spoke again, lips brushing the soft skin underneath his jaw. “Open the hatch up. I wanna see the stars.”

“Your wish is my command,” he obliged, a little startled by the random acquisition, but happy to obey. With a flick of his wrist, he opened it, and blew out the lantern he had lit inside. Neither of their eyes needed time to adjust to the change in lighting, and both fixed their gaze on the sky. The sounds of the jungle filled the air, and the hot, humid air flooded in, dampening their skin and hair.

“I always preferred the jungle at night.” Kali’s voice was quiet. “I remember the jungles back home. They always teemed with life, all day and night. In the day, they were bright, green, colourful. Animals all around, stupid, bumbling deer and gaur, insects the size of your hand and the most beautiful birds. But at night,” she breathed the words, sending tremors through them, “oh, it was spectacular. There’s a majesty, a mysticism to the night. The shuffles in the bushes could be anything. Of course they could just be some clumsy herbivore shifting in its sleep, but there was always the knowledge that there could be something more niggling at the back of your mind. A leopard, small, lean, its spots blending perfectly into the dark, mottled trees. Or if you’re by the water, a crocodile, humped and twisted but totally invisible amongst the murk.” This next part she whispered, a tone of reverence under her words, “But there’s always a chance that it could be the greatest, the most feared animal in the dark; a tiger, burning bright orange through the foliage, kings by birthright. Yet every single one of them, whether the most fragile of butterflies or the strongest and biggest of cats, they all bowed to me.” She said this final sentence with a smile, which Gabriel could feel in her mouth against his skin.

As their eyes closed, more in peace than in tiredness, the two bodies settled further into each other, remaining that way until the bustle of the day would disturb them, with the whiskey still laying where it had been tossed, under the desk on which they lay.

Gabriel’s Bunker, Present Day:

Before continuing, Gabriel decided it would be best to move this conversation elsewhere; the bunker was small, cramped, and certainly not what it used to be. He quickly moved them back to the meadow he was very quickly learning to associate with his younger brother, among the mountains of Switzerland. The sky was grey this time, but no rain fell on them.

“Why do you keep bringing me here?” Castiel’s frown deepened.

“It’s easy. And relatively pretty, and pretty far from fucking anywhere.” It was a short response; there was more to discuss.

“Look,” Gabriel continued, “like I was saying, there’s a lot more to this than whiskey. You may not even drink the whiskey, nor may he. It’s a gesture. This whole thing, love; it’s a game. A show. And you,” he pointed his index finger towards Cas, simultaneously handing him the bottle, “are the leading man.”

Cas’ face remained creased. Gabriel let out an exasperated sigh, but persevered.

“Smile. Say hello. Ask him how he’s doing. Hand him the whiskey. Compliment him on something. Tell him there’s something you need to talk about. Then break the news. Plain and simple.” It wasn’t really that simple, but he didn’t want to confuse Cas any more than necessary. Plus, Dean knew Cas well enough to know he was a little different, and not so snazzy socially.

“What should I compliment him on?”

Gabriel almost said his ass, but that might have been moving a bit too roughly. On the other hand, complimenting him on something like his eyes was way too sappy.

“Tell him he’s looking good today. Ask him if he’s been working out.”

“Working out? You mean exercising? Dean doesn’t do much of that.” Cas really wasn’t getting it.

“Just say it. It’ll make him feel good.” He couldn’t be bothered explaining it in any more detail than that. He stood back, and asked Cas to stay where he was, ignoring his confusion. His clothes were in pretty bad shape, but he could definitely work with it.

“Tuck your shirt in,” he ordered, and then proceeded to straighten Cas’ tie himself. He smoothed out the wrinkles in his shirt with his hands, and neatened the lapels and collar of his coat. He also made sure to clean his shoes a little and style his hair just slightly. To finish it off, he gave a quick puff of cologne onto Cas’ neck, something which confused his younger brother a great deal more than anything else he had done.

When he was done, he stood back to admire his work.

“Man,” he said, “I should do this professionally.”

Cas looked confused, as always, but didn’t question him.

“You’re ready,” he finished.

“Am I?”

Carmel-by-the-sea, Present Day:

Gabriel arrived in the motel room towards evening. Both brothers were exhausted, their eyes rimmed with dark circles and their neatly ironed suits crumpled and covered with crumbs from the fast food they had been eating, the wrappers to which lay scattered across the tablet.

“Found anything?” Gabriel didn’t expect them to have, but he thought he would ask anyway.

“Nope,” Dean responded bluntly. With equal abruptness, he stood up, announcing with a yawn that he needed a shower. Gabriel thought fast, and a few moments later Dean emerged cursing that the motel’s shower produced only cold, brown water that smelled suspiciously of mold and sewerage. Leaping on the opportunity, Gabriel offered to take Dean back to the bunker to shower and then return him when he was done. Slightly taken aback by the generosity, but too fed-up to really care, Dean agreed. After an awkward thank you, Dean stormed down the hallway, and shut the door (a little too loudly) to his room, with not a single glance back.

As soon as he heard the water running, he moved quickly, summoning Cas to his side outside Dean’s door. Cas looked wired enough that Gabriel would not be surprised if he got an electric shock just by touching the guy.

“Ok,” Gabriel began, “I got him in the shower. Now, all you got to do is approach him when he gets out, ok? You remember everything we talked about?”

Cas nodded shakily, eyes wide and eyebrows arched in adrenaline. Gabriel gave him a pat on the back for reassurance, and made his way back down the hall to check on the others. Just after he turned the corner in the hall, he heard Dean’s voice rise suddenly, and begin yelling. With dread in his throat, Gabriel dashed back to where he’d left Cas. The door was flung open, with Cas quickly exiting it and Dean chasing him out, hair still wet and nothing but a towel around his waist.

“We’ve talked about this,” Dean said, loudly in his frustration, “You can’t just walk in on people when they’re naked or in the shower. It’s rude. This is like the fifth time this has happened Cas. You gotta get this right.”

With that, the door was slammed in Castiel’s rather shocked face. Gabriel tried to hold back a laugh, and went to put his arm around Cas. Resisting the urge to ask about the other four times this had happened, he instead simply replied, “You need to wait until he’s dressed Cas. Humans have a thing about clothing,” he said, gently, adding, “It’s best to start clothed, and then work towards naked, ok?” With a final pat on the back, he wished Cas good luck, and headed off to take care of some business of his own.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel and Sam talk feelings, and the angels get pissed back at the bunker.

Carmel-by-the-Sea, Present Day:

“You wanna talk?” Gabriel appeared seated on the bed in the motel that had Sam’s things on it; the same one they had gotten hot and heavy on before.

“About the case? We’re thinking it had to be some kind of witch. The deaths fit the mark too w-.”

“You know what I’m talking about,” Gabriel interjected. Sam continued to stare purposefully at his laptop, while Gabriel’s eyes were fixed very pointedly on Sam. Sighing, Gabriel continued, “We can’t just ignore this. You and I both know that something is going on between us. You feel it, I feel it. So what’s the point in putting off the inevitable?”

“The inevitable? Us hooking up is ‘inevitable’?” Sam still was refusing to look in Gabriel’s direction. This meant Gabriel couldn’t use an eye-brow wiggle to answer the question, which was a hell of a lot easier than actually formulating an answer (hence why he used it so much).

“I’m just trying to say what needs to be said. If you want more time to think, fine, no pressure, but we can’t put this off forever.” He wanted to say that he didn’t know how long he’d be able to stand this thing they had going lying stagnant between them, but didn’t want to guilt-trip Sam.

After a pause, Sam’s eyes finally found Gabriel, sitting to his right on his bed. They only touched on him for a second, then returned to the sunlit window beside him. He never told anyone about how, once Gabriel had left, and it came time for Sam to take a break, he’d let his fingers linger just a little too long on the warm spot where the angel had sat, before finally collapsing in exhaustion into the pale, dusty yellow sheets.

Men-of-Letters Bunker, Present Day:

Upon arriving back at the bunker, there was no trace of Dean nor Cas. Gabriel took this as a good sign, and let a small smile tug at the corners of his lips as he took a seat at the library table.

“How’s the research going?” Gabriel could see from the looks on their faces that it was going just as slowly as before, but decided it was probably polite to ask.

“Absolutely shit,” Balthazar’s muffled voice could be heard from within the pages of the token dusty tome his face was buried in.

Anna had a little more etiquette. “About the same as before. Nothing groundbreaking, but at least we’re getting through the materials we have.” Gabriel had always envied the optimism which seemed to keep Anna going in times like this. It did occur to him that optimism may not be the correct word, but his mind was too full for him to bother correcting his own thoughts.

After a moment of thought, Gabriel promptly left the bunker, and returned with an expensive array of liquor: some whiskey, wine, champagne, spirits and a couple of alco-pop drinks, just to cover all bases. Balthazar sat pretty straight up as soon as he heard the pop and fizzle of the wine bottle opening, while Anna gave him a questioning yet appreciative look. He poured all three of them a healthy glass each, and moved the books in front of them to the side.

Before handing them over though, he poured a drop of something bright pink into each glass, illuminating them for a split second, then dissolving without a trace.

“What are you doing?” Anna tensed as soon as he brushed the books aside. However, Gabriel could not remember a happier look on Balthazar’s face.

“We need a break. None of us are working at full power at the moment, and none of you are any good to me burnt out. Relax. Drink. Take a break for a while,” Gabriel responded, a grin on his face. “Fuck knows we all need it.”

“But what did you just put in? I mean I’m not complaining, the more drugs the better at this point as far as I’m concerned, but I do generally prefer to know what I’m putting in my mouth,” Balthazar responded with a wink to finish off the double entendre.

“A little something special. From an old friend.”

Shangri-La, Philadelphia, Present Day

Several hours earlier, Gabriel again found himself relishing in the carnal festival that was the _Shangri-La._

As soon as he’d sat down at one of the booths around the corner of the room, one of the dancers had begun to sway and dance in front of him, gradually moving closer until she sat, still wriggling on his lap. She was some kind of vampiric being, but he didn’t care enough to figure out exactly what. What he did know was that she was smooth and cool against his too-hot skin, and her teeth and tongue were working magic along his neck and jaw.

On his other side, Gabriel felt the air grow warmer. As the dancer extracted herself from him he absent-mindedly passed her a roll of dollar bills, and turned his attention to the other body resting next to him. His eyes fell on the dark skin, following the curves of her waist and hips, eventually resting on her eyes, bright and golden as ever.

“Back so soon? I do not do refunds, you know this. And I certainly don’t take money. If the spell did not work it was because you did something wrong,” her voice danced as gracefully as the performer he’d just had in his lap, but with a lighter overtone.

“The spell was fine. But I could do with a little pick-me-up. You still got that stuff? As I remember it was one of your most popular products,” he flashed her a smile, running his hand along her thigh.

She grinned, white teeth flashing a multitude of colours in the shifting light. With the grin, she produced a small vial of neon-pink fluid, barely the size of a pill bottle, but more than enough to make an impact. As he reached for it, she pulled her hand back.

Her teeth vanished, but her smile remained on her face. “You pay. I deliver.”

“What do you want?” Gabriel had a few things prepared, though none of them involved anything to do with products related to his own body.

Her hand moved across his chest, a look of contemplation on her face. Slowly, she moved in, planting one, delicate kiss on his mouth. He caught a brief glimpse of her eyes as she pulled away, before she vanished completely, leaving the vial in his hand.

Men-of-Letters Bunker, Present Day: 

“What does it do?” There was an air of trepidation in Anna’s voice, but a hint of intrigue as well.

“It just gets us pissed quicker. You won’t be smashed in one drink, but you won’t have to drink the whole store either.

Both Balthazar and Anna made two matching faces of approval, and proceeded to taste the concoction. Balthazar decided that to test it he would need to down half the drink in one go, while Anna began to take more conservative sips.

“Where’s Cas?” Anna craned her neck, but gave up quite quickly and returned to her glass.

“With Dean,” Gabriel wiggled his eyebrows for emphasis, while Anna rolled her eyes and Balthazar poured a hefty dose of vodka into his glass. Gabriel raised his eyebrows as he filled the drink barely a millimeter from the top of the glass, but remained silent.

“Don’t judge,” Balthazar said, taking a swig. “Anyway, it takes us a fuck-load more booze to get pissed than a human, I bet even with that stuff, and if there is any one time where one should get pissed it is when one has risen from the dead to find the world is in just as much shit as it was when you kicked it.”

Gabriel couldn’t disagree, and Anna’s silent nod showed she was on the same bandwagon.

“So,” Balthazar sighed, “this is it hey? To save the world? Three flunked out angels and a bucket of drink.” They laughed, but the undertone of cruel truth left their laughter ringing hollow.

“So where’s Sam? Is he still in Carmel?” Anna asked, speech slightly slurred.

“Yeah, right where I left him,” Gabriel answered, his mouth half in his drink. He wasn’t absorbed in it enough, however, to miss the exchange of pointed looks between Anna and Balthazar.

“What was that?” Gabriel’s voice took on a suspicious tone, as he pulled back of his glass slightly.

“Nothing,” Anna spurted out, giggling into her drink. Gabriel also couldn’t help but notice a sly smile on Balthazar’s face, tugging gently at his lips as he drank.

“No, seriously, what?” His voice became a little more urgent, and for some inexplicable reason a knot formed in his chest. To top it off, he felt a bit of blood rush to his cheeks.

“Fuck me, you’re actually blushing,” Balthazar chimed in, further emphasizing Gabriel’s embarrassment and turning his cheeks an even pinker shade.

“Seriously though, what are you two doing? What is this? I feel personally attacked,” the first part was a cover-up, but the second part may have been half-true.

“We’re not blind, you know? Nor are we delirious any more, though even at zero power it was screamingly obvious,” Anna began.

“What was?” Gabriel had all but forgotten his drink, but decided at this point to quickly finish the rest of it.

“You’ve got the hots for Sam and he may perhaps have a little flame that lights up right you-know-where when you enter the room,” Balthazar continued right down the trail Anna had blazed.

Gabriel could feel his cheeks really beginning to burn now, and considered denying them the pleasure of his admission, but decided to just come out with it; the spiked wine was firing up his belly and loosening the threads between his mouth and mind just enough to make the conversation flow in an entertaining direction.

Head tilted downward, eyes looking up, Gabriel responded with a drawn-out “Maybe.” This soon turned into “A little”, and finally a full-fledged “Yeah ok, he’s pretty cute”, much to Balthazar and Anna’s delight, as they whooped and poured themselves some vodka shots. Gabriel decided to help himself to one, taking the pink vial off of Balthazar and sloshing a healthy drop into his own glass, and an equal amount in Anna’s outstretched one.

Heaven, Before Lucifer’s Fall: 

Gabriel sat in a quiet corner of the Garden, peacefully practicing some spells. He had been trying to make a butterfly for quite some time now, though he wasn’t having much success. They never came out alive, and he couldn’t seem to work out how to make sure all the organs were inside the body, rather than melded with the crumpled wings on the outside of the body. He had caught Lucifer playing with similar spells earlier, but was too proud to ask him to show him. It didn’t help that his Father, Michael and Lucifer had just been fighting again-he found it generally wise to stay out of all their ways for a good while after this happened; it seemed to be becoming a regular occurrence.

After a good half hour of very careful concentration, he had achieved some semblance of a butterfly. Though it was not alive, the wings were in a pretty good shape and he had managed to get the heart, lungs and stomach inside the abdomen. It wasn’t perfect, but it was certainly an improvement.

He started at the sound of Lucifer’s voice behind him.

“Do you want to know a trick?”

Gabriel stiffened, but turned around anyway. It was tempting, but he really did not want to appear as though he was taking sides.  Before he could make a decision, Lucifer came to sit on the grass beside him and the broken butterfly. He cupped his hand over it, allowing the whole, healthy and very alive butterfly to fly free.

“How did you do that?” All worries he may have had about playing favorites vanished; the possibility of being able to do such things overwhelmed him. Lucifer apparently saw the desire in his eyes, and placed a warm finger to Gabriel’s forehead. His mind flooded with information, opportunities he had never thought to touch on.

Within an instant, Gabriel had conjured up his very first, perfect creation. All worries he had about Lucifer’s current choices vanished, as a small smile alighted upon his older brother’s face.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So just a quick apology: I'm really very sorry I haven't been posting regularly enough, and I'm sorry for the lapse in quality of my work in recent weeks. I've been going through a rough patch in regards to my health, and I hope you all understand and will continue reading this work! I thank you for all the support already, and am totally flattered by all the hits and kudos I've received for basically my first work! Thank you so much, I love you all, and I'm going to try and bring my work back up in quality!

The Men of Letters Bunker, Present Day: 

It had gotten into the early hours of the morning, according to the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, which, 50 years on, was, through its steady tocks, still reminding the inhabitants of the bunker of the time rapidly pouring through their fingers. The pink vial had run out hours ago- his seller rarely gave him enough to last more than one long, admittedly busy, night- and all in the room had begun to be taken by the contents’ sluggish, sedating after-effect. Angels did not need sleep; however, they by no means did not get tired. Balthazar, once again, had his head down on the table, while Anna was sleepily scrolling through her phone, with her head resting on the book before her. Gabriel was not technically asleep; he was perfectly aware of his surroundings, but his eyes were closed, as he leant back on his seat, head tilted towards the vaulted ceiling.

He had been allowing the clock to lull him to into his current resting state, though even like this the sting of worry still niggled at the back of his mind and in the pit of his stomach. On the surface he worried about Sam, and how he felt for him, but deeper he worried about Amara, and deeper still about Lucifer. He had been back for over a month now, and still the only sign he had seen of his brother was the wreckage of Salem, with the dead angel being the most tangible link between them, though that had disappeared into ashes. Nor had he, in this time span, come any closer to finding a way to defeat Amara. His aunt and brother were constant weights, and ones he often felt only he truly understood. The others were not being nonchalant, but, with no insult to their intellects, none of them seemed to have a full grasp on the power of their two current enemies. Gabriel had fought Amara himself, felt her power, and he had witnessed Lucifer’s strength too many times to count, though the understanding went further than that; Gabriel was perfectly aware of their physical structure, inside and out, and of the immensely powerful and complicated mechanisms behind said strength.

Gabriel’s mind continued to attempt to lurch forward towards some mythical solution, but he continued also to be left grasping in the darkness. It was as though they had reached an impasse that Gabriel had always known they would; it had taken all four archangels and his Father to stop Amara last time, and they only had a fifth, and, to be frank, the least powerful fifth, of the puzzle needed to stop her. Lucifer would be more manageable- the Winchesters had managed to stop him last time- but Gabriel was reluctant to face him, though only for cowardly reasons.

His thoughts were- much to his gratefulness- interrupted by Dean storming down the hallway in his typical brash style, calling out some snide remark as he entered. Gabriel noticed a small skip in his step, which had been heavy recently, as he ascended the stairs. Gabriel heard his footsteps cease at the top, with a brief pause.

“What, you all stoned or did someone die?” It was a highly characteristic entrance. Gabriel wondered whether or not Dean should be asking the latter question though, given his track record.

Anna was the first to respond. Her cheeks were slightly red, and her eyes still sleepy. “Not sure.”

Dean made a face, and grabbed a bottle of beer off the table, only to realize the contents were missing, and put it back down just a little too hard.

“Seriously though, what’s going on? We got anything? By the way, Gabriel, I’m gonna need you drop me back off with Sam, if that’s ok, apparently we’ve got another vic.”

After no response, he added an impatient “Hello? Ground control to major douchebag, you in there?”

With a sigh, Gabriel turned his head to acknowledge Dean, and with a great effort, heaved himself out of his seat, and flitted Dean right back to the hotel where he left Sam.

Carmel-by-the-Sea, Present Day:

Somehow, Sam looked to be in a worse state than even Gabriel. His eyes were sunken and ringed with dark circles, the hair on his head was tangled and greasy, and the table was littered with half-eaten fast food wrappers and an almost-empty bottle of whiskey.

Dean clapped his hands, too loudly for the tiny room. He continued regardless, in an equally loud voice. He seemed to be, at the moment, the most energetic of all of them. “So, what do we got?”

“Uh,” Sam began, rubbing his eyes, “another vic. A man this time, a priest.”

“A priest? Well what did padre do wrong?” Dean wandered over to the other side of the table, picking through what food Sam had left, and taking the last swig from the bottle of whiskey.

“No clue, yet, they only found him about ten minutes ago. Speared all the way through with his crucifix, mouth to uh… the other end.”

“Hoisted on his petard, what do you know,” Dean said with a smile, though Gabriel was the only one to laugh. “Alright, I tell you what. Sam, you’re gonna go home with Gabriel to take a shower and get at least four hours of sleep, I’m gonna check out the scene and do some digging. Sound good?”

“What?” Sam rose to get his jacket, “No, I’m going anywhere, I need to stay and help.”

Dean rolled his eyes, as though this was a familiar situation. “No, Sam, you need to stay alive. To do that you need sleep. Anyway, no FED is gonna let you into a crime scene like that; you look like you just crawled out of a strip joint. You’re going home.”

With a sigh, Sam dropped his jacket back on the chair, and gave Dean the address of the incident. Gabriel waited for Sam to turn around and face him. Dean appeared to be waiting for the same thing, though, when after a few moments went by, he realized that that was probably not happening, and reached out to tap Sam on the shoulder, hauling him back to the bunker. He left him outside the door to his room, and was left with a slammed door in his face. It wasn’t exactly what he had hoped for, and thought it a little unnecessary, but couldn’t exactly argue with a piece of wood, and flew back to Carmel to take Dean to the crime scene.

When he arrived, Dean had his jacket on and was working on his tie. Gabriel let a small smile show when he saw Dean use a scarf- generally not his style- to cover a decent-sized hickey on the side of his neck.

Before Gabriel could remark, Dean chimed in, handing him the slip of paper Sam had written the address on.

“Alright, let’s go to church,” he said, with a perfect deadpan. If nothing else, Gabriel had to commend Dean’s sense of humor; it landed pretty close to his own, bar all the violent pranks.

They arrived at the church to find the street swarming with emergency vehicles, the sky lit up with flashing blue and red lights. Morbidly curious locals pressed against the police tape, trying to see if they could catch a glimpse of some blood, or the crucifix, or, ideally, the priest’s body, though Gabriel assumed at this point it would still be inside.

Flashing their fake IDs, they were allowed past the neon yellow tape, stepping through the scurrying police and forensics workers, doctors and detectives. As they entered the church, they were treated to a full-scale view of the incident. The aisles and naves were filled with more of the same kind of people outside, while the transept was being very carefully documented. Blood was artfully spattered across the altar, and, as they drew nearer, they were able to see the priests’ plucked out eyes placed pointedly staring toward them in the middle. The priest himself rose above the rest of the church, the crucifix jammed down his throat, and, as Sam had said, out the other end, with his hands nailed to the cross, still in his cassock.

“I tell you, man,” an unfamiliar voice spoke in Gabriel’s ear, “there is some seriously fucked up shit happening in this town lately.”

The voice came from a man in police uniform, with dark hair and deep brown eyes, and a kind face. He shook his head.

“It must be hard. For the community, to lose all these people. Especially a priest,” Gabriel decided to lead him on.

The man sighed, and paused. “It’s been a real hard time,” he said, eventually. “There were a lot of people who didn’t like Father Lucas, but he saved a lot of people too. But that’s all I’m gonna say about that, agents, if that’s ok. I hate to rain on a dead man’s reputation and all, particularly a holy one.”

With that, the officer continued on his way, speaking to other officers and forensics workers. Gabriel turned around to ask Dean’s opinion, though he found himself facing just air. With a brief scan of the room, he found Dean talking to another, female officer, young, with red hair and a plain, but pretty face, standing by the transept with a camera in her hands. Gabriel decided to let Dean have that one, and began studying the rest of the crowd.

Through all the millennia Gabriel had lived through, he had become very adept at reading a room within a short period of time. There was an old police chief, probably on the verge of retiring, seated in one of the pews, rubbing his knees and wrists, muttering to another officer of joint pain; the guy looked like he was about one day off retirement. A couple of pews back he saw two more agents, a man and woman, both clearly not talking about the murdered man in front of them. There was a slightly overweight man towards the back, munching on chips he was pulling out of a bag; he was probably just waiting to get home to his family. In the front left corner, off of the transept, stood two women, middle-aged with quite obviously dyed hair. One of them, with deep-red locks and a stern face, was holding another, a blonde weeping into her friend’s bosom. He found it interesting that there was not only no remorse on her face, but also a hint of something deeper, a look Gabriel had long since learned to recognize as a person who was glad of something they should not be glad of, and who were perfectly aware of this fact.

He wasn’t going to interrupt her now, as he didn’t feel like dealing with the weeping woman she was holding, but stored her away as a lead to look into later, or, more probably, tell Dean to; Gabriel had other things to attend to, and had spent too much time here anyway. He couldn’t resist poking around a little more though before he threw the reigns over to Dean entirely; he had been out of the game a while, but back while he was the Trickster he’d done his fair share of this kind of work.

As discreetly as possible, and with a quick apology to the red-head, he pulled Dean slightly away from her.

“What?” Dean asked, eloquently.

“Do you mind if I head off? By the way, that chick over there,” he nodded towards the other red-haired woman he’d noticed earlier “I have a feeling there’s something going on with her. Seriously though, I should probably head back to the bunker.”

“Yeah OK,” Dean replied. He didn’t look ecstatic, but Gabriel didn’t really care, and by the way he was getting on with that girl he expected Dean would be able to hitch a ride back to the hotel pretty easily.

Men of Letters Bunker, Present Day: 

When Gabriel arrived back, Anna and Balthazar had been joined by Cas in the library, and all three were looking considerably more cheerful than they had been a day before. Balthazar had made some joke which had Anna giggling, and Cas smiling.

“’Sup, losers,” Gabriel made an energetic entrance, pulled out a chair next to Cas and thumped down into it.

“Where are Sam and Dean?” Anna inquired.

“Sam is in his room here, recharging, Dean is at the latest crime scene.”

“What happened exactly?” Anna sounded genuinely concerned, and Cas also had a look of seriousness on his face. Admittedly, Cas didn’t have a lot of different expressions, and this one was one of his most popular.

“Not sure. Priest is dead, stabbed through like Dean said earlier. No clue what’s really going on.” He was about to add that he didn’t care, but that probably wouldn’t have gone down well with Anna and Cas, and he was sure the information would get back to Sam, who was already apparently pissed at him.

“They’ll figure it out, they always do,” Cas added. “It is their job. Which, speaking of jobs, I apologize for being absent earlier, I was busy.” Gabriel could tell Anna wanted to inquire about that, but Cas quickly continued before she had a chance. “Where are we with research? I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but I feel like we’ve exhausted what we have here.”

The mood suddenly grew a lot more serious, though all four worked hard to keep a degree of lightness about it; no way would they make it through this if they moped the whole time.

“Yeah, we have,” Gabriel replied, moving to gather the books they’d borrowed from the Vatican. “I’ll take these back, any others you guys took I’d return them if you don’t think they’ll be useful anymore. May as well. And maybe try and fetch some new ones, look places you hadn’t before. I’m gonna go check out the Vatican again, Cas, maybe try other parts of the Mediterranean? There’s bound to be some more stuff there.”

Gabriel’s Bunker, Present Day:

Gabriel had made a quick stop off at the Vatican, though only to drop off the books he’d taken before. He would make sure to pick some more back up before going home, but he had one thing he needed to look through himself first.

He had stashed the book he had tucked into his jacket when first looking through the Vatican’s vaults in his own bunker as soon as he was able to. It was unlikely it would have anything on Amara, but with a title in Hebrew roughly translating to “The Taming of the Morning Star”, it seemed a good start when figuring out how to trap his brother. Gabriel knew how to kill him, but he was determined not to do that if he didn’t have to.

The Rings of the Four Horsemen were still definitely in the Cage with Michael- it was them being in there that helped to lock it- and Gabriel wasn’t about to jump in there and get them. He had been toying with the idea of warded chains, but he didn’t know any powerful enough to bind Lucifer. He also had long ago decided that he was going to have to weaken him from a distance; the last time he’d confronted Lucifer directly he had been dead within a span of minutes. That probably meant some kind of spell, though he expected he would have to construct it himself, or patch one together using others. Fortunately, spells had always been Gabriel’s strong point.  

The book, at first, merely parroted back information he already knew, or stuff that had been completely fabricated by humans. Towards the end, however, the book referenced loosely a concept that Gabriel would be sure to keep in mind: one cannot defeat the light with dark, nor the dark with light. It was interesting idea, and though vague could be useful. However, Gabriel first had to answer a question he was not sure he ever would be able to: was his brother the light, or was his brother the dark?

Heaven, After Lucifer’s Fall: 

Gabriel walked numbly through the Garden, the smell of smoke in the air. The Garden itself had remained untouched throughout the course of the battle, but the wastelands beyond were scorched black, with their heavy smoke being carried in by the wind.

The Garden was more still than he had ever seen it, or felt it, rather; it lay stagnant in the air, the heavy weight of it almost tangible. He had not seen his other brothers, nor his Father, since the battle. He hadn’t heard anything from the younger angels. All other life in the Garden, the animals and plants, were silent as well. It was as though the entirety of Heaven remained in a state of quiet shock. Lucifer had certainly been causing trouble, with his distaste peaking with the carrying out of God’s plan and the creation of Adam and Eve, but no one had quite expected his being cast-out; or, rather, they had an idea it was possible, but that somehow it would not actually be carried out, for some reason no one had been able pin-point but that everyone believed in.

Gabriel was still not able to process what had happened. He felt something, though he wasn’t sure what it was and it had not yet quite broken through the shock. However, he knew he had never felt anything like it. It was bad, but on a different level to anything else. Bad like when he had heard Lucifer and Michael and his Father fighting, bad like when Lucifer had thrown that paperweight at his head, but far deeper.

He suddenly realized that the smoke around him had thickened, and it occurred to him that he must have been nearing the edge of the Garden. The area looked familiar, and as though through someone else’s eyes he remembered the night he had found Lucifer here, what seemed likes eons ago. He remembered the doe and fawn he had encountered, and the things Lucifer had said to him when he reached him. Turning the corner, he half expected to see his brother there, sitting in the exact same spot as he had been that night, and, despite this expectation, was still shocked when he did indeed encounter his brother sitting in that same spot. However, it was not Lucifer who he found.

Michael sat, cross-legged and, for once, slouched, staring off into the wastelands. Slowly, Gabriel approached him, though even as he seated himself next to him Michael didn’t move. He saw that Michael’s face was wet, but didn’t understand why. Neither of them said anything for a while. At some point during this time Gabriel shuffled closer to Michael, and leant his head against his older brother’s shoulder. A few moments later, Michael rested his own head on Gabriel’s.

Then, the only sound out of the silence, Michael spoke.

“Gabriel,” his breath shuddered, “you should leave. While you have the chance, you should leave.” The words hung in the air as heavy as the smoke.

 

 

 

 


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel makes a break-through with the Carmel case, and reminisces on his first vessel.

The Vatican, Present Day: 

For the past six hours, Heaven had been releasing torrents of ice-cold rain onto Vatican City. Gabriel had been watching from an apartment window not far from the Vatican Secret Archives, which he had recently plundered once again. The rain had been washing clean the gargoyles and statues outside, and flooding the many intricate fountains, all built in his Father’s honor. Such was the rain that all that was really visible of the outside world was a series of blurred lights and the quickly shifting figures of tourists scurrying from museum to shop to fountain, a circuit they would appear to be determined to repeat endlessly, despite the weather.

Gabriel sat again with an old book on his lap, staring through the pages. They seemed to him to be a never-ending procession of stoic angels in starched robes, gruesome descriptions of hell and splendid tales of the gardens and halls of Heaven. The last book he had read had stuck in his mind, though he had found nothing more related to it whatsoever. He had been finding it difficult to concentrate in the Men of Letter’s bunker; after Sam had emerged from his room and the other angels had fallen quiet in their research Gabriel had found his mind wandering places it definitely should not be. The apartment had been an attempt at an escape, but it had been a futile one. If anything it had made his thoughts swim even more furiously; the presence of his Father’s worshippers all around him had simply added worries about his brothers, particularly Lucifer, to the cacophony.

The image of the priest impaled on his cross in Carmel-by-the-Sea had also been haunting him, as had the whole case. It should have been infinitesimal to him, something only a human hunter would deal with, but his gut was telling him it was something far more sinister. With one last look out at the rain, Gabriel promptly shut the book he was holding, sending up a shower of dust, and decided to pay the Californian ocean another visit.  

Earth, shortly after Lucifer’s Fall:

Gabriel remembered waking up in a state of extreme confusion and even greater agony. The body he was inhabiting felt numb and heavy, its limbs akin in feeling to the rubbery plants that his Father had grown in the Garden. This mental comparison caused another bolt of pain to go through him, though this time it was purely emotional.

His fall had been almost surreal. Of course he had not cut out his grace; he wasn’t prepared for that, but with the Garden in smoke and his family in pieces, the physical pain he was in now was barely more than that of a pin-prick. This also happened to be his first time in a human vessel, and he was, in fact, though it had never occurred to him, the first angel to take one. They were a new invention, and although they had been forbidden to mess with them, that had well and truly been thrown out the window in quite spectacular fashion.  God had been silent since the Fall, and at this point if this was what it took to get even so much as a murmur from Him, Gabriel was more than willing to take a chance.

The initial pain did eventually fade, and was, as Gabriel would realize as he occupied future vessels, the human body responding to the trauma that it took to get the angel inside them. This was a messy process as best, but the situation was made particularly bad due to the angel in question being an entirely unexperienced and incredibly powerful one.

The sensations he was experiencing were the most unusual things Gabriel had ever felt. While his angel form had similarities- hands, fingers, legs- there were a great many things that were entirely unfamiliar, including the way even the familiar parts worked and felt. As feeling began to creep into his fingers, he noticed the difference between feeling with human fingers as opposed to angel ones; the feeling he had assumed was numbness from the trip into the body was actually simply the way humans felt things. The eyes he looked through seemed almost blind to him, and his hearing felt all but nonexistent. Of course these were all things that he would in time learn to fix, but for the moment Gabriel was the weakest he had ever been, and for whatever reason, at that moment, he was pretty ok with it.

Carmel-by-the-Sea, Present Day:

Again Gabriel walked down the carpeted aisle of the church, though this time it was silent and dark, the bustling police and forensics vanished. Crime scene tape held the door behind him shut, though of course this was not an obstacle. When Gabriel reached the nave, the sudden ring of his feet on wood startled him; it seemed too loud, almost garish, in the stillness. The choice of wood for this area and the adjacent transept had, however, proved to be a fortunate one, as the blood had been mopped easily. The crucifix also was spotless, though it had been drenched in blood and his Father-knows-what-else only half a day ago.

He stood it below now, the image of Jesus hanging above him. Gabriel failed to see the comfort humans saw in crucifixes. The carving was graphically painted, with blood streaming down from his head and hands, His face was anguished, and Gabriel found the dead stare unsettling rather than welcoming. Without knowing quite why, he reached out and plucked the crucifix from its stand, turning it over in his hands. The light that filtered through the stained glass rose window above him was limited, but it was enough to see by. He ran fingers along the back of the wood, coming to rest where the two pieces of wood joined. They paused as they brushed over a series of scratches. Gabriel looked closer, following the lines until he realized they were placed far from haphazardly, eventually forming themselves into a familiar symbol, or rather, symbols.

Though they would appear as only scratches to a regular human, Gabriel recognized them as a form of Enochian, a rare one. It was used solely for placing curses and hexes, and was very harsh in design, usually leading the untrained eye to pass over them. It was unsurprising, even if the crucifix had been looked over by the Winchesters, that they would have recognized them as anything more than random scrapes in the wood.

It was worth noting that there were very few beings in creation that could actually read these symbols. It was also worth noting that Gabriel was, fortunately, once of these beings. However, at that point, Gabriel would have much rather he had not known how to read them, as, by default, he knew what it took to inflict them.   

Earth, shortly after Lucifer’s Fall:

After stumbling around for a few minutes in his new body, Gabriel began to get the hang of walking in it. The two trunks that formed the vessel’s legs were ungainly, but eventually they began to move in time with those of his true self, and within what he guessed was an hour, though back then humans had no such word, he was able to move rather fast through the scrubby grass. At first he tried a power walk, then moved on to a jog, and towards sundown had managed a run.

In his exhilaration, induced by the aforementioned achievement, Gabriel forgot entirely to watch where he was going, and was mildly stunned when he felt another shock of pain go through his foot; this proved to be no more than a thorn, which he promptly removed, but served well as a reminder of how fragile his new body was. The thorn would not have grazed an archangel in its true form, yet in this human it had him seated in the dirt rubbing his foot rather pitifully.

With fascination he stared at the hole in his new skin. It was sore, but he was far more interested in the fabric of the flesh. He could see the layers of skin, the ends of the capillaries that were torn, the ripped flesh that bore down almost an inch towards the bone, and most captivating, the red liquid that oozed out. He had seen animals in the Garden bleed: when they gave birth, when they injured themselves, when they menstruated, when they fed on others. However, there was something more intriguing when the strange fluid poured out of a hole on his own body, when he felt the pain that went along with it. More pain came when some large insect landed on the wound, sucking at it. This caused a pang of revulsion in him, though he was not quite sure why; after all, this was a part of nature that had always existed. Despite this, he swatted the bug away, and with a touch of his fingers, the wound had healed.

He stood again, but this time took more care as to where he stepped, scanning the ground with his half-blind eyes. As the sun set in the sky, he became aware of another sensation, one also completely new to him; the feeling of cold. Everything in the Garden was a pleasant lukewarm temperature, whether it be the lakes or the forests. Down here though, the sudden fluctuation was new, as was the way in which his body translated it into emotions and body movements. He watched, mesmerized, as the hair follicles on his body rose, as he felt the urge to wrap his arms around himself, as his genitals began to shrink, as he wanted to stay in the dying light for as long as it was there, and as far away from the darkening wood line as possible. Gabriel had walked Earth before, seen snow and glaciers, but he had towered over them, the cold not even registering. Here it began to bite, and as the darkness of night moved in, his eyesight completely vanished. He looked above him to see the stars, but tonight they and the moon were hidden behind thick clouds.

This would be his last moment in that vessel. Very suddenly, he felt a hard knock on his back, sending him face-first into the earth. He felt a searing pain in his right arm, and quickly jumped out of the body, where it now lay broken on the ground, and fled quickly into the sky, though he would not return to Heaven. Simply, he began the same exhausting process over again, one he and every other angel would become quite accustomed to in time, and began to drift over the clouds, mind and eyes searching for another human willing enough to take him in.

This became a lot easier, he found, when humans finally developed the conception of an afterlife, which, in Gabriel’s opinion, took far too long.   


	22. Chapter 22

Carmel-by-the-Sea, Present Day:

Gabriel first checked to see if there was a tie on the door of the motel, then banged his fist against it heavily, not really caring if Dean was asleep. However, the door swung wide, and in its frame Dean stood, disheveled and still dressed in his FED suit, but very clearly awake.

“Where the hell have you been? It’s been like 24 hours!” Dean greeted him.

Gabriel brushed it off, pushing his way inside, where, to his surprise, he found both Sam and Cas sitting at the crappy table in the corner. He tilted his head at both of them, and waited for an explanation. Cas was the first to reply.

“You weren’t answering fast enough. They had to call me to help take them to their destinations,” Cas sounded about as happy as Dean had.

“Where were you?” Gabriel was caught by surprise at the sound of Sam’s voice. It was the first time he’d really spoken to Gabriel since their little rendezvous on the bed next to them, and Sam sounded like shit.

“Solving your case,” he replied, trying to hide his alarm.

“What?” Dean was just as short tempered as ever.

“I know what’s killing your vics. I’m willing to bet that padre had some dirty secrets of his own, right?”

The expression on each of their faces confirmed his suspicions. There was a long pause, until at last Dean replied.

“Uh, yeah, the guy was a kiddy-fiddler. That red-head woman you pointed out to me; one of her sons was a victim. How did you know?”

“It’s a kind of angelic curse.”

“A what?” It was the second time Sam had spoken, and his voice was just as grating.

“It’s designed to punish those who do evil in a manner that matches their crimes. The curse is applied by scratching a very particular, very rare set of symbols on the intended object of murder; only a very small number of people know how to read them, but unfortunately one doesn’t necessarily need to,” Gabriel explained.

“That makes no sense,” Cas squinted at him, his brow furrowed.

“The only thing one needs to cast the spell is a particular object to write them with; it will do it for them,” he continued.

“Ok, well what object?” Dean’s tone was short; he was getting frustrated, but Gabriel didn’t really care.

“The bone of an archangel.”

Silence swept the room; all three’s expression’s faded.

“How could a human get something like that? That sounds extremely difficult,” Cas’ expression returned to its typical tight, confused state.

“You have to harvest it from a vessel holding an archangel. I myself lost an arm a long, long time ago, but I find it unlikely anyone would have been able to hold onto it for so long. I’ll know when I get the thing. And I never said the word ‘human’.”

“Then what?” Dean’s voice was clearly getting too loud, as the residents of the neighboring room banged loudly on the wall behind him. Dean shot them a dirty look, and collapsed onto the nearest bed.

“My best guess is an angel. Maybe working for some kind of currency? Selling people revenge or just dishing it out themselves for whatever reason.” The possibilities rushed into Gabriel’s head as he spoke them; a modified summoning spell might do the trick.

“Modified? What the hell does that mean?” Dean was as eloquent as ever.

“I concur, why modified? Also, we don’t even know the angel we wish to summon? Nor are we certain it’s an angel,” Cas’ questions were slightly more articulate.

“That’s why we’re going to use a certain kind of summoning spell. I know one that will bring anyone practicing magic using a bone of mine in town to our doorstep, all we need are a few basic ingredients: basically everything you use for a regular one.”

“No additions?” Sam tried to rise, but failed and gave up, sinking back down into his chair again.

“My blood,” he replied, then added, “and you change the words around a bit.”

Cas’ eyebrows furrowed even further. “Is this a good idea? We don’t even know who it is.”

“You got a better idea?”

He had Dean round up the necessary ingredients for the spell out of his bag, while Gabriel hit the lights, drew the curtains and cleared a space in the centre of the room, pushing the beds and table to the side. It was now night, and the neon signs outside cast a faint glow over the room. As Dean emptied the contents of the bag onto the bed, Gabriel held up a bright pink lacy bra before him. Dean’s face went blank, with the slightest hint of that of a child who has done something wrong, is completely aware of it and doesn’t regret it in the slightest.

“This yours’?” Gabriel couldn’t resist the quip, but threw the bra away onto one of the beds with a snicker.

He could tell Dean was trying to hold back a smile, while the other two sighed in unison and set about preparing the spell. Dean reclined in one of the chairs and opened a fresh beer. Gabriel would have liked one too, but had run out of go-juice, and there was no way he was getting even tipsy on one regular can.

“Gabriel,” Sam called, “you’re up.” For a second Gabriel thought he meant something entirely different, until he saw the knife Sam was holding out to him. Reluctantly, Gabriel took it, and, standing over the bowl in the centre of the room, he slid the blade along the soft skin on the underside of his wrist. He wondered when he had stopped referring to the body as his vessel and instead dictated that it was his own. The red liquid that oozed out still fascinated him; there was something enrapturing about it, though he had never quite been able to pin down what it was. As the first drop hit the bowl, a spark went up, and Gabriel leapt back out of the painted circle as the light grew, though it was not the cool white of an angel as he had expected, but a bright mixture of hot pinks and violets.

He heard Dean and Sam grunt at the stinging in their eyes as the light grew brighter, and covered their ears at the sharp ringing sound filling the room. Just as the intensity had gotten to the point where even Cas was shielding his eyes and ears, the light and noise began to fade. As it did, the blurred figure of a woman became clearer and clearer. When the dust had settled, she raised her head; the look in her eyes recalled that of some cat sizing up its prey. Judging by the sober looks on the others’ faces, this woman was likely more than known to them, but to Gabriel she looked like any other human, albeit one with particularly good fashion sense.

Dean was the first to speak as the room went back to normal.

“Well if it isn’t the Bitch of Waverly Place, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Who?” Gabriel was more than a little confused.

The woman drew her lips back over her teeth in a smile that vaguely reminded Gabriel of a shark preparing to strike, although this particular shark happened to have teeth rimmed in a bright red, probably exorbitantly expensive, lipstick.

She looked around pointedly. “Well, I see your choice of accommodation hasn’t improved? And I see the Three Amigos have added a fourth to their little band.” There was an oddly cheerful note in her voice.

“Rowena,” Sam shot her a seething glare, though the effect was lost somewhat due to the hoarseness of his throat.

Rowena clearly noticed, a look of mock concern and genuine surprise on her face. “Dear, dear Sam,” she said, too sweetly, “got a bit of a cold do we? Well, I know a good cure for it, if you’re interested.”

“We don’t want your help,” Cas also apparently had a bone to pick with this woman.

“Ok, that’s it,” Gabriel interrupted, “who the hell is this? Judging by the ice in the room, I’d say you guys have a history.”

“You could say that,” Dean spoke a little too loudly, again. “So,” he continued, “it’s you that’s been boning all the dicks in this town.”

“I beg your pardon? Language, Dean,” Rowena replied in mock offense, her hands placed delicately on her hips. “I know of nothing of the sort.”

“Yes, you do,” Gabriel said, getting in before Dean could make some other crude remark, “you’re a good liar, but I’m better.”

Her eyebrows raised. “Are you now? And what would your name be, my dear?”

A small smirk crept into the corner of Gabriel’s mouth; this part never got old. “Gabriel. They call me Gabriel.”

The woman seemed stumped. “Gabriel..?”

“The archangel. One and only,” he replied, letting the smirk creep up further along his lips.

There was silence in the room for a moment, while the smile on Rowena’s face dropped slightly. After a while, she piped up.

“So where did you dig him up?” She turned to face the Winchesters, but Gabriel replied himself.

“Indiana.”

“Well, I’m gonna have to go book a stay at the Regency some time, see what crawls up out of the woodwork,” Rowena’s smile slunk back into her mouth.

“What are you doing with Gabriel’s bone,” Dean blurted out, stumbling over the last two words and clearly doing a double take, albeit too late. This raised the eyebrows of everyone in the room, including Rowena.

“I thought we agreed, no more crude remar-.“

“That’s enough!” Cas interrupted Rowena before she could finish her sentence, his voice louder than Gabriel had ever heard it. “Is it you that’s been killing those people in town?”

Rowena, for once, remained silent. The room seemed to hang in status for a moment, Rowena’s face and figure completely unchanged. Gabriel took the moment to study her. She was clearly proud- her posture was near perfect, with her head tilted back, her back straight and her chest out. However, he sensed the pride was not there since birth; she lacked the perfection that came with high breeding, but the power was there nonetheless. Gabriel had had some dealings with witches in the past, and he had to admit, reluctantly, that this woman could probably pack a pretty punch.

“Alright,” Dean began with finality, breaking the silence, “you’re coming with us.” As he said this, he reached into his bag and pulled out a pair of warded handcuffs.

Gabriel felt Rowena attempt to beam herself off. He moved to stop her, but Cas was closer, landing a heavy hand on her shoulder, still glaring. Sam helped Dean with the cuffs while Cas held her down.

Eventually the witch spoke again in her Scottish twang, “This is highly undignified.”

“Yeah, well you know what else is highly undignified? Being speared up the ass with a crucifix, or having your head blended in a snow cone maker. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” Dean made a point to stare into her eyes just long enough to make her uncomfortable; Gabriel caught a flicker of doubt in her expression. However, the flicker did not last long; she straightened herself, threw back her head and shoulders and again bared her teeth.

“So? Where to now?” Cas sounded as though he was addressing all of them, but his eyes were only on Dean.

Dean stood in quiet thought for a moment. Gabriel noticed Sam leaning on the table in the corner; the old wood creaked with the weight. His eyes were heavy, rimmed in dark circles. After a few seconds of thought, Dean moved to start cleaning up the summoning circle. He did so methodically, clearly in no hurry. Cas tightened his grip on Rowena’s shoulder, until she made a small squeak; at this he lightened his hand, but only slightly. With the floor clean, Dean began to pull a chair towards the centre of the room. Rowena rolled her eyes and, dutifully and with a surprising amount of elegance for someone whose hands and feet were both bound in iron, lowered herself into it, allowing Dean to secure her with even more chains.

“You two sure do have a thing for bondage,” she remarked, a streak of arrogance in her voice.

“Now who’s making crude remarks,” Dean shot back, stepping away to admire his work, and to glare some more. He pulled over one of the bedside tables- Sam had moved to the only other chair- and threw himself down on it, with, Gabriel had to admit, far less grace than Rowena had. The two sized each other up, neither breaking their resolve.

“You gonna talk or are we gonna do this the hard way?” Dean crossed his arms.

He was met with silence. Nodding, he reached an agreement on his own terms, “Alright then. Let’s light this mother.”

Heaven, Before Lucifer’s Fall:

There were few moments from his days living in the Garden, before Lucifer’s fall and his own escape, that Gabriel did not remember, but there were some that had left a particularly strong impression on his mind. Most were with Lucifer, some with Michael, or Raphael, or, even more rarely, with his Father.

He often wondered why God didn’t leave his throne room often; in fact, Gabriel only recalled him leaving once or twice, on very important occasions. He was also always very careful not be spotted by the other, younger angels; he seemed to avoid them like the plague. Gabriel had never been able to come to a conclusion as to why he did this either. It seemed especially strange given the beauty of the world He had created, and the thousands of angels all living in utter adoration of Him.

Gabriel could count on one hand the number of times God had paid him any significant amount of attention. So rare were these interactions that one of the moments he remembered of the Garden with the most clarity was the time He had rested a single hand on Gabriel’s head, though the action itself lasted no more than a few seconds.

God had gathered His archangels again to the throne room, but this time, they were standing in the garden on the roof, rather than kneeling several feet below the pedestal on which God usually sat in his great golden chair. What was particularly unusual was that His scribe was not present; it was rare he had a moment with just his elder brothers and Father, no scurried sound of pen on paper. Instead, all they heard were the sounds of the Garden: the sweet singing of a multitude of different songbirds, the shushing of the wind in the treetops, the trickle of a nearby waterfall.

Michael was, as usual, watching their Father with both rapture and absolute adoration. Raphael was also clearly intent on what He was saying, though he always appeared more expressionless to Gabriel, but Gabriel had no doubt he loved God as much as the rest of them. Lucifer seemed, as usual, to only be half-listening. However, Gabriel was certain that this was an act. Lucifer never missed a word; he would frequently repeat things from conversations during which he had behaved as he was now. It is important to note, however, that just because he was skilled in squirreling away information for later use, this does not mean he cared what was being said or revealed what he truly thought of it.

Despite this, his family’s behavior in that moment was entirely typical, and not at all strange or new to Gabriel. What was different, was their positioning. Lucifer sat on God’s left-hand side, with Raphael next to him, then Michael. Gabriel was, to his unconcealed delight, seated on his Father’s right-hand side, a seat usually reserved for God’s first-born. Gabriel had been worried that Michael may take this change in position as a slight, but his brother smiled down at him with only kindness as God offered him the place. 

God was never one to use an abundance of words when those words were not being recorded. It wasn’t for a few minutes after Gabriel sat down that He spoke any words. He stared past them all, over the Garden to the horizon into which the Sun was setting. So long did He stare in that direction that eventually all of them, even Lucifer, turned their gaze to it. Eventually, He rested His hands on His sons beside Him; Lucifer to His left, and Gabriel to His right. Gabriel remembered the feeling of His hand on his head. It was huge, warmer than anything he had ever felt, but it did not burn him. He recalled that somehow it was at the same time both soft and firm.

After a moment, the hand slid down the back of Gabriel’s head, and came to rest back on the knee of his Father. He couldn’t help but notice that it lingered a little longer on Lucifer. Then, out of the peace, His voice bloomed.

“My sons,” He began. Gabriel reveled in the sound of His voice; there were thick undertones of rich warmth, loud, but tempered with delicate, softer tones that rippled along the top of it.

“I brought you all here to tell you something. Something very important.” They all waited in silence. “Change is in the air. I wanted to ensure that you four, my eldest and most blessed, were the first to smell it.”

“What kind of change?” Lucifer answered too quickly, too loudly for the peaceful atmosphere.

His Father allowed the noise of the Garden to answer in His place. Lucifer fell silent, his face calm, but without vacancy.

 

La Playa Carmel, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Present Day: 

Gabriel stood in an overly plush, “Premium Ocean View” room in the La Playa Carmel Hotel; it was certainly a far cry from the room Sam and Dean were staying in; the piece of coral on the nightstand was likely a few hundred alone, and he didn't even want to think about what the organic sheets or bamboo furniture would have cost. It looked harmless enough, but Rowena had insisted that what they had been looking for was in this room, though they couldn’t get out of her where; getting the hemisphere it was in had been hard enough.

Of course they had not and would not come good on their end of the “deal”. Rowena had told them on the condition that she was a free woman as soon as the bone was located. There was no way that was happening, and Gabriel expected Rowena was perfectly aware of that.

Gabriel went about checking the obvious places: under the bed, in the closet, behind the fridge, but when they turned up nothing, he went straight to the bathroom. Lo and behold, there, nestled in Rowena’s black suede and likely very expensive sanitary bag was a long irregular shape wrapped in leather. He unfolded it carefully, to reveal the cracked and yellowed humerus- he resisted the urge to crack a joke, though there was no one there to joke with- and with a touch, confirmed that it was in fact from the arm he had lost all those eons ago. He wondered vaguely what had happened to the other bones, but decided it was unlikely they were still around; it was a miracle this one still existed.

He did a quick search of the rest of the room, but turned up only her luggage, which was padlocked with warded symbols. He could break through them if he really wanted to, but decided it was a task best left for later, and dragged the suitcase back to the hotel with him.

Carmel-by-the-Sea, Present Day:

“Got it,” Gabriel announced as he reappeared in the run-down motel room, the dilapidation of which stood in stark contrast to the room he had just been in.

“Is it yours?” Dean got up from where he had been reclining on the bed nearest to them.

“Yeah, it’s mine. Not sure how it’s managed to survive this long, but there you go,” he said, holding it out, but snatching it back before anyone could grab it.

“What, you’re not gonna share?” Dean looked personally affronted.

“Play with your own bone,” he shot back, in as snarky a voice as possible. He topped if off with a double eyebrow raise in Sam’s direction, to which he was received with a heavy sigh.

“You even brought my luggage, how thoughtful,” another smile stretched across Rowena’s face, despite the bruises that now covered it. “No chance you’re planning to fix me up, though, hey boys? A lady can’t go around looking she’s been run through a blender; people ask questions, you know.”

“Good thing you won’t be going ‘around’, as you put it,” Cas replied, “you’ll be going straight to the interrogation room in the bunker, which is where you will be staying for the foreseeable future.”

Dean walked over to where Cas was untying Rowena from the chair. “Hey,” he said over his shoulder, “why did you bring the luggage?”

“It’s locked with warded padlocks; figured you wouldn’t go to that much trouble to protect bras and stilettos.”

Dean, Cas and Sam all made that same weird upside down smile thing with their mouths, which Gabriel took to be to a silent agreement; he supposed the Winchesters had passed it down to Cas, and Gabriel decided in that moment to do all he could to ensure it didn’t spread to him.


	23. Chapter 23

Men of Letters Bunker, Present Day:

Gabriel sat in quiet concentration in the library. The grandfather clock ticked away dutifully in the corner, while the rest of the room was in silence. The only other noise came in the form of brief shouts from the interrogation room, mostly from Dean, and never from Rowena; Gabriel suspected that they would not reemerge with any recount of significant progress within the near future, nor did he expect the suitcase to be cracked within said time frame either.  

The locks on it were constructed with a surprising amount of finesse and complexity, especially for a witch. The primary roadblock that Gabriel was experiencing was the dialect in which the symbols on the locks were written; they were not something Gabriel was fluent in, to say the least. To say more, Gabriel was absolutely stumped. Currently, he was using trial and error. Unfortunately, there were about six different locks binding the suitcase, including multiple kinds of cable locks, pad locks, furniture locks and fuck-knows-what-else. The inside of the suitcase also appeared to be littered with powerful wards, as Gabriel was unable to simply rip the thing in two as he would have with any other kind of normal case.

Despite the suffocating hopelessness and frustration of their situation, the knowledge that Gabriel’s bone was now resting neatly on the table beside him, wrapped in an old, whiskey-stained tea-towel, kept a little step in Gabriel’s walk, despite the bountiful innuendos that had since ensued, largely courtesy of Dean and Balthazar. As Gabriel turned the symbols on one of the locks to yet another position, and was greeted again by the silence of the locks’ refusal to click, this hope was dashed. With a groan, Gabriel rested his head on his arms, and let out a deep sigh.

He heard someone shuffling with the suitcase, but kept his head turned down. He focused on the tick-tock of the clock, allowing his breathing to slow and his mind to drift away from the library, from the suitcase before him and from the yellowed bone resting quietly beside his elbow. As the world outside of his mind left him, Gabriel’s awareness began to float slowly inward, letting him drift through the dark, hazy warmth of his past.

Uruk, Mesopotamia, Third Millennium B.C.E.:

Gabriel leant casually against a wall, staring up at the Anu Ziggurat, the temple to An, the Sumerian’s sky god, and above it the White Temple. The sun beat down heavily on the Anu district, and the White Temple shone in the light. It towered forty feet above the city, and was visible from outside the city’s defensive walls. To the present day, Gabriel never failed to be amazed at the dedication with which humans honored their gods; by raising the Ziggurat high, they proclaimed the power of An, though Gabriel knew none of the humans in Uruk would ever meet him, nor was he likely to hear their prayers nor visit their temple. The recessed stripes of the Ziggurat threw broad patterns across the ground, leaving spots of red-brown earth, bright with the sunlight, scattered among spots of shade.

As he watched the light dance and the crowds mill, he began to study more closely select individuals from the masses. He watched a father as he swung his child, a little boy, up onto his shoulders. The father’s hair was largely a rich, deep brown, with streaks of silver beginning to show towards the front, while his son’s hair hung dark and shaggy to his shoulders, his hands and clothing smeared with dirt, a broad smile across the faces of both. As they rounded the corner, he picked out another to study, an old woman this time, her grey hair styled as was the latest fashion, dressed in clothes finer than most Gabriel had seen at that time. Behind her trailed a party of similarly dressed people, though he could see none of them in apparel that matched the woman, something he expected was deliberate. A pang of pity went out to the poor boy rushing along beside her, holding up a cloth umbrella to shield the old woman’s speckled skin. A path cleared as she ascended the steps to the temple. As the woman’s posse cleared, another woman, not as finely dressed but striking nonetheless, emerged from its shadows. Much younger, as she moved into the light her skin shone a deep, russet brown, her hair cascading down her back in shining, natural curls. Gabriel’s heart skipped a beat as she threw him a look; her eyes were a stunning green, in stark contrast to the many shades of brown and black that most had in this region.

For the first time, Gabriel felt a tightening in his pants, and a sickening lurch deep in his gut. However, unlike the similar reactions he had to pain or fear or grief, he felt no wish for its absence. The feeling grew stronger and his vessel’s penis grew harder as she moved toward him across the path. For a moment he wondered if there was something wrong with his current body: if it was sick and he needed to move on to another. To his quiet alarm, however, he found now more than ever he wished to stay in this body, if only to have access to hers.

Her face was painted with garish makeup, while her clothing was so flimsy it left little to the imagination. This made her profession clear, though both the men jeering at her and Gabriel found no room for concern over this, as he fumbled in his coin purse for loose change. As she brushed past him, her hand slid its way down his arm, slipping the coins in his palm into hers, then allowing her long, thin fingers to graze his hip and pelvis, coming within an inch of his member, a deliberate miss. It was enough to make Gabriel follow her into a small room across an alley. It was cool and dark, and the floor was but mud-brick. The air was imbued with a musky incense, which burned quietly beside the bed on the floor. There were no windows, but the space was lit with a warm candlelight; barely enough to read by, but he sensed those who entered that room were not there to read.

Slowly, the woman wrapped her arms around Gabriel. His breathing was too loud and heavy for the small space, while he could barely hear hers. Methodically, almost with a business-like air, she undressed him, letting her hands wander across his skin, catching on the erogenous zones of his body: his throat, his nipples, his genitals. With deliberation she knelt before him, taking him into her mouth, right to his hilt, sucking until her cheeks hollowed. Gabriel let out a low moan, which she matched in a husky tone. Her right hand tightened around his hip, while her left caressed his scrotum. As he began to groan again, she released him, though only for a moment. With a sudden and surprising strength, she pushed him backwards onto the bed, straddling him with her knees.

As they fell back together she allowed him to enter her, and began to move, slowly at first, then faster. By this point Gabriel was openly groaning and gasping in pleasure. He stared up at her as she rode him, overwhelmed by the pure pleasure that shot through him in waves like lightning bolts.

“Take off your clothes,” he gasped, gaining confidence. She obeyed, the movement fluid despite the increasingly furtive movements of her love-making. As she pulled her garments over her head, Gabriel savored the warm skin that was being slowly revealed. As her breasts spilled out, dangling and bouncing over him, he could not hold on any longer, and spilled up into her, his shaft becoming limp as his semen dripped onto it. He closed his eyes in contentment, only to open them a moment later to find that it was no longer the prostitute on top of him, but Sam, himself coming messily over him. Gabriel remained inside him as he sat up, pulling Sam down for a kiss, his green eyes devouring Gabriel below him. However, as their lips neared each other, Sam drew back slightly.

“What’s wrong?” Gabriel whispered, his voice hushed.

Sam smiled. “You have to wake up, Gabe.”

“What?” The golden afterglow of his orgasm began to leave him, as did the warm candlelight and musky perfume.

“Wake up,” Dean bellowed in his face. Gabriel’s eyes shot open and his head spun as he took in the surrounding shelves of the library. “What the hell? I thought angels didn’t sleep?”

“Umm,” was all Gabriel could get out, his mind still reeling. He discreetly, moved a hand down to his crotch, to check that he hadn’t actually come everywhere. Much to his relief, he discovered the denim clean. “I got distracted.”

He worried Dean was going to ask him what with, but fortunately Dean looked pretty tired himself and let it go. Gabriel forced a blush and a boner down at the sight of Sam next to him, and instead focused on the slip of paper Anna was waving in his face.

“What is that?” Gabriel reached out to take it; it was a peculiar kind of paper, soft, yellowed, and probably very old.

“We don’t know,” Anna replied, “we were hoping you could enlighten us, after you were done with your nap.”

Gabriel stared at the symbol on the paper. It did look familiar, but he had absolutely no clue where he knew it from. He committed it to memory, and handed it back to Anna.

“No clue, never seen anything like it. It’s probably just some hex spell or something Rowena was keeping around. It can’t be important.”

“Why?” Gabriel hadn’t realized until he spoke that Cas was seated next to him, looking as tired as the rest of them.

“Well did you crack the case?” It was a rhetorical question; the suitcase was lying before him, locked.

“Does it look like we did?” Dean spoke into the lip of a Heineken.

“Then where did you get the piece of paper?”

Dean looked pretty fed-up, so Sam answered for him. “It was in an unlocked pocket on top of it.”

Gabriel smiled sarcastically. “Then if it was important I’m sure she would have it in the locked part, not an open pocket at the top.”

Dean looked like he wanted to argue, but was also clearly struggling to come up with an answer. With a begrudging tilt of his hand, he turned back to nursing his drink. 

“So how’s it going with Rowena?” Gabriel asked, still turning the symbol over in his mind.

“Terrible,” Cas replied, with a distinctive air of finality and hopelessness.

The room returned to a depressing silence. With a final swig, Dean emptied his current bottle, and immediately after opened a new one. Balthazar looked as though he had had a few too many as well, as he yet again had his head down on the table. Gabriel was tempted to grab one too, but forced himself to turn back to cracking the suitcase.

“Don’t bother,” Balthazar mumbled, head still resting on his arms. He said something else, but his voice was too muffled for Gabriel to make any sense of it. Gabriel looked to the others for clarification.

“She’s already given us terms,” Cas replied, running his hand through his hair. “Bring her Crowley and she tells us how to open it.”

“Then why the hell haven’t we? Come on, let’s go, he can’t be that hard to find,” Gabriel stood, looking around at the others, who remained still.

To Gabriel’s surprise, Sam actually shuffled a little closer as he rose. “We’ve worked with both before. They always double-cross us.”

Gabriel scoffed, “Please, Hocus Pocus down there might have you all twined around her little finger, but no way in Hell is she pulling the wool over on me; you don’t double-cross the Trickster.”

***

Gabriel leaned impatiently against the wall as the Winchesters set up a summoning spell. The room they were in was located in some dank and dusty corner of the bunker, and, Gabriel guessed, hadn’t been cleaned or probably even used in years; the single, overhead light there was was clearly straining to keep from going out- it likely wouldn’t make it through the spell- and the air was so thin in there he wondered how the Winchesters were upright. There wasn’t even a trace of any living insects; a few ancient cobwebs clung to the darkest corners of the ceiling, though even they looked dejected.

The monotony of the room served as stark contrast to the bright red devil’s trap on the floor, newly painted, but the old bowls the brothers were using fit right in. He needed to remind them to invest in some new Tupperware; there was a genuine risk of them leaking.

“Alright,” Dean stood back to admire his work. With a nod of approval, he pulled a lighter out of his back pocket. “Let’s light this candle,” he spoke the words with a perfect deadpan, and dropped it into the central bowl. Sam went to stand behind the circle, with seeming purpose.

The bowl sizzled with sparks as the flame hit it, dying down to reveal a rather perturbed Crowley. He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the clinking of metal behind him. He struggled with his hands behind his back, his face gradually growing redder and redder in his mounting fury.

“What the blood hell is this!?” It was more of an exclamation of anger than a genuine question.

“Warded cuffs, dick-bag,” Dean answered.

“Articulate as ever, I see,” Crowley responded, with one last, half-hearted pull on his shackles. “What the hell do you want this ti-?” His words were cut short by his own surprise. His eyes bugged and his skin began to pale at the sight of Gabriel, Anna and Balthazar, standing very much alive before him.

“The fuck is this? They’re supposed to be dead? I knew there was a bloody reason for all those fucking miracles. I don’t suppose you’ll tell me how in the hell they’re back?” He was greeted with silence. “Very well, then. I repeat: what do you want? I was busy.”

“With what?” Sam began to move around to the side, the key to the cuffs half tucked into his jeans.

“None of your goddamn business, moose.”

“Given that we’ve got you by the short and curly I’d say it’s very much our business,” Cas spoke with as much intensity as he always had, enough to set Crowley at unease. After a moment of shifting around the balls of his feet, Crowley responded, his tone guarded.

“I was at dinner. With a very lovely young lady by the name of Kiana, if you must know.”

“Was Kiana going to survive the night?” Anna’s voice was calm, but with ice-cold anger bubbling up underneath.

“Don’t kiss and tell, darling, signature rule of the game,” despite the snarky come-backs, there were worry lines on Crowley’s face. A drop of sweat began to bead just below his hairline. As it began to drip down his face, he surreptitiously tried to wipe it away with his shoulder.

“Here, let me get that for you,” Dean smiled sarcastically, and threw a splash of holy water where the drip had been, scalding a significant portion of Crowley’s face. He tried to stifle a scream, so that it came out as a low growl.

Sam held his arms to either side of him in enquiry, while Dean responded with a shrug.

Crowley straightened, steaming both literally and figuratively. “What the fuck was that for? Apes!”

At that, Dean held up the flask of holy water again, giving it a pointed shake. Crowley fell silent.

“Well,” Dean pocketed the flask, and grabbed Crowley by the arm, “time for a family reunion. Let’s go meet the Wicked Witch,” Dean said with a smile.

“Oh, bullocks,” There was a look of realization on Crowley’s face as he was lead, shuffling and clanking, to the interrogation room. Gabriel flung the doors open in front of him, and stood to the side as Dean pushed him in. The push was possibly a little too violent, as Crowley fell to his knees before his mother, though it was certainly effective.

Rowena grinned, still sickly sweet. “My son,” her voice quivered as she said it, and though her voice was soft, Gabriel could tell the quiver was from hatred rather than love.

“Mother,” Crowley spoke with equal fury.

“It’s so good to see you,” Rowena held her head high, making a point to look slyly down her nose at him. She then added, “like this, of course.”

“So,” Crowley seethed, “this was your doing? What did she promise you, you stupid twats?”

“None of your damn business, that’s what,” Dean glowered at both of them.

“But what’s your plan?” Crowley continued, “Have them bring me here, and what, we’re both locked up? How is that any good? I wouldn’t let her go, if I were you.” He spoke this last part to the Winchesters.

“She’s not going anywhere,” Gabriel cut in.

“Then what’s the point?” Crowley had struggled to his feet by this point, looking down on Rowena, red-faced and breath heaving.

Rowena leaned up and forward, as much as she could. Sam and Dean tensed up, but she resisted no further. Rowena again bared her teeth. “Because if I have to be locked up,” her face crumpled with anger now, “then so should you be.”

“Very mature of you, mother.”

“Enough!” Anna stepped forward. She walked slowly, deliberately, the cool anger Gabriel had seen creeping in earlier finally surfacing, and, as always, in spectacular fashion. “That’s enough,” her voice quivered.

With a sudden flick of her wrist, Crowley flew across the room, hitting the wall and then the floor with two dull thuds and a sickening crack. He screamed, writhing on the floor, his nose bleeding onto the concrete, hands bound uselessly behind his back and his broken leg dangling loose.

Anna leaned down before Rowena, resting her hands on her knees. Her gaze was stoic and firm, never lifting from the woman before her. She let out one, long breath, letting her shoulders relax ever-so-slightly. Rowena’s grin faltered, but didn’t fade entirely.

“What are the codes?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper; Sam and Dean leaned in a little further to the center of the room.

“I’m going to have to use my hands for that sweetie.”

“You’re lucky to still have hands,” Anna replied, even quieter than before.

The atmosphere seemed to hum with friction as Rowena’s grin turned into a look of absolute fury. The air thickened in the silence; he wouldn’t be surprised if his own blade struggled to cut it.

However, Dean had never been the type for dramatic silences, and his voice split it like butter.

“Just tell us how to open the damn case, Rowena! I’m tired, you’re tired, we’re all tired, so get on with it!” The octave was certainly above Dean’s typical level; Mariah Carey would probably have difficulty belting it out louder.

It definitely worked to change the mood; Anna withdrew, and Crowley stopped groaning from where he had fallen on the floor. Sam also started to move, leaving the room and returning with the case.  He pulled the rusty table and chair from where they usually sat in the corner of the room, placed the suitcase on the table in front of Rowena, and sat himself directly opposite her in the chair.

Without saying a word, Sam began to turn the first wheel of symbols on one of the locks. The first one he moved one symbol, then looked to Rowena for confirmation. She shook her head in a silent ‘no’. Sam moved it one more symbol. Rowena gave a small nod.

Dean sighed, rubbed his eyes. “This is gonna be a long night,” he declared, taking a swig from one of his flasks. Apparently he chose the wrong one, as he wrinkled his eyes and nose and spat out a few drops of holy water. Cas looked exasperated, and almost leaned against Dean. Crowley rolled over onto his back, while Balthazar quite simply left. Gabriel, despite lactic acid not being a thing in angels, quickly conjured a chair for him, and, out of courtesy, one for Anna, which resulted in a put-out look from Dean, who he expected probably wanted a chair of his own.

So, with utter contempt emanating off of everyone in the room, the night settled in to the periodic click of the locks on the suitcase.


	24. Chapter 24

The Men of Letters Bunker, Present Day:

Gabriel sat perched high in the branches of an old pine tree, one of the ones that had dug its roots into the roof of the bunker. The bark was still damp from the cool of the night, and dew clung to the fine needles that sprung from it. The forest stretched all around him, the trees standing straight like sentinels against the coming dawn. Over the horizon, the Sun began to peek, sending shafts of pink and red light across Lawrence. Inside the interrogation room had been stuffy and almost suffocating, with the only noises being the sporadic clicking of the locks and the periodic bickering of Rowena and Crowley. Rowena had thrown a couple of tantrums during the night, demanding an obscure array of food and drink, though Gabriel suspected that she was simply stalling, rather than actually hungry, while Crowley had moaned and rattled his chains until Dean had held their demon-killing knife to his throat, at which he had gone silent.

His current surroundings stood in stark contrast to the atmosphere inside the bunker. The air was clean and cool in his lungs, and the distant sounds of magpies were beginning to rise. The view to the East was clear, no clouds; just clear, open sky. From the South a few clouds had gathered, though they themselves were white and fluffy, the kind humans took such joy in painting underneath angels and cherubim, pink light dancing off of golden harps and halos. Gabriel closed his eyes, and let his head rest against the trunk, breathing in its earthy scent. From somewhere close beside him, he heard a soft cooing. Not lifting his head, he opened his eyes. On the branch before him, a Mourning Dove sat, grey feathers fluffed up against the cold, sitting in the midst of a nest of old twigs and pine needles. Feathers and leaves stuck out at irregular intervals, and a stolen patch of old cloth was buried in one side. The bird was slight, but with a round chest and big, gawking eyes. It turned its eyes to look directly at Gabriel, and let out another, slightly louder coo. As he slid his hand along the branch towards it, it shrank further back into itself, raising the feathers around its neck in what it probably believed was a greatly threatening manner. Out of respect, he drew back his hand, and instead let it rest in his lap.

The bird then turned its head to face the East. The brightening light set its feathers aglow with a yellowish tint, giving the creature a look more majestic than a common dove, perched high above an old, dusty bunker, than was probably fitting. The effect was not as stunning as if the dove had been one of the stately, white doves that one saw in paintings and read about in prophesies, but the bird seemed satisfied, as it let its feathers relax, and tucked its head behind its wing; contented, if a bird could be that.

In that moment Gabriel also found a feeling of contentment creeping over him, though as usual it formed only the thin, upper layer of his current emotional state, and did not penetrate any deeper.  This fragile layer was completely torn away by the obnoxious call of Dean Winchester in his mind, summoning him once again to the stifling confines of the interrogation room.

When he arrived, the table before Rowena was surrounded by people. Rowena herself still sat bound in her chair, her face expressionless. Crowley remained sitting on the floor in the corner, beat up and broken, still chained. A few items of clothing were lying heaped on the floor, a mixture of very costly looking dresses, braziers and stockings, while more were being added to it as Gabriel watched. As Gabriel moved closer, inserting himself into the group beside Sam, he saw another pile, before him on the table, more carefully arranged than the one on the floor. Cas and Sam were sorting through the contents of the suitcase, checking pockets of dresses and the settings of rings for hex bags and hidden chambers, depositing the useful findings in the pile on the table, and throwing the empty jewelry and clothing away. Gabriel picked up a ring that lay on the neat pile of magical items on the table, holding it up to the light. Along the inside of the shank were symbols: hexes designed to kill the owner. More interesting were various keys, hidden in mascara tubes, pens, false notebooks, even ripped from where they had been sewn into the soles of shoes. Most of the items were petty hexes and basic spell ingredients; enough to kill a few dozen people, but nothing of cosmic importance.

One of the keys, however, did catch his attention. It was clearly old, wrapped in old fabric and covered in Wiccan wards and hexes condemning any human that attempted to use it. The observant and knowledgeable eye however, could see the Enochian scratchings behind them. They would deter a regular angel, but whoever created this either had neither the means to ward against archangels, or they never believed the key would catch the attention of one; Gabriel suspected it was the former. However, in the current state of the wards (most were faded and broken, the likely inspiration of the messy Wiccan wards on top of them) they would do little damage to any angel.

While the others were still emptying Rowena’s luggage of her witch paraphernalia, Gabriel moved out of the circle and around to Rowena’s chair. As he held the key in front of her, a small smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

“Clever choice.” Gabriel was, for a moment, taken aback by the sound of her voice; it was cracked, tired, and held only a fraction of the pride and regality it had held before he left.

She continued, “Better make sure you pack your pocket bible on the road, dearie. And a jacket; there’s a storm coming from the south,” she finished with a smile.

“What?” Dean interrupted, “What road?”

Gabriel answered in Rowena’s place.

“To find the thing this opens,” he said, holding the key up.

Dean snatched the thing out of his hand, leaving the fabric with Gabriel, and began to inspect the warding.

“What kind of wards are these?”

“Wiccan on top. The old ones below it are Enochian, but they’re so faded they won’t do anyone any harm.” Gabriel gently took the key back, gently wrapping it up; he wasn’t about to risk it getting any more damage, and he certainly wasn’t trusting it to Dean, who had had a few more drinks than one should probably have during an interrogation.

Sam crossed his arms, pulling away from the table and focusing his attention on Rowena.

“So where are we headed? What does it open?”

“That,” began Rowena, “is for me to know, and you,” here, she inclined her head, “to find out.” She finished the sentence with yet another sickly sweet smile.

Dean bobbed his head a few times in begrudging acceptance, then, downing the last drops of his beer, he unceremoniously dumped Rowena’s clothing back into her suitcase, which he chucked graciously towards the corner of the room, then, with only slightly more care, he swept the various magical items she had hidden in her belongings into an old Tupperware container, which he thrust into Cas’ arms. He went on to yank Rowena free of the bonds holding her to the chair, with a bit too much zeal, something confirmed by the small squeaks of pain Rowena made as she was being untied. When she was marched out of the room, iron cuffs still on, she tightened her lips, threw back her head and stuck out her jaw, grinding her teeth as she rubbed the red marks they were etching out onto her skin.

A string of expletives, courtesy of Crowley, followed them out. Gabriel took far too much pleasure in slamming the door on them, though he noticed an open smile on Dean’s face as well.

Arizona, Present Day:

The lush pine forests of Kansas had turned into the hard, red dirt of Arizona hours ago, while the back seat of the Impala was suffocating, and the entire ordeal was beginning to drive Gabriel slightly mad. In fact, this was an understatement; Anna and Balthazar had agreed to stay behind, as Cas had refused to leave Dean with Rowena and all three were reluctant to go sans Gabriel. For almost fifteen hours Gabriel had been sandwiched into the back of the Impala, with Rowena to his right and Cas to his left. They had tried having Rowena in the middle, but Cas had very quickly refused to be seated next to her, due to her incessant babbling and provocation.

Afterwards, he firmly believed that the only thing that had prevented him from going completely insane was the blessing of the uninterrupted view of the road before him, which stretched on in an endless line of black and grey bitumen, through the foggy forests of Kansas, bustling cities and now the open plains of the South-West.

It is, however, important to note the use of the word “completely”. Rowena had steadfastly continued the banter they had all been previously subjected to in the Bunker, including frequent requests for the use of a bathroom, various foods and had even, on a couple of occasions, refused to tell them when the next exit was should she not be given the opportunity to stretch her legs. This had resulted in the drive taking exactly three hours and twenty-seven minutes longer (Gabriel had been keeping careful count, for no other reason than as a means to quell his boredom) than it was supposed to take. She also refused to stop talking about her days in the north, in Scotland and other cold and damp parts of Europe, though why she thought anyone cared, Gabriel had no idea.

Cas was as rigid as though he had been dipped in dry-ice, and Gabriel was sometimes genuinely afraid that the next pothole in the road would result in him shattering into pieces beside him. Rowena, to his right, was the opposite; she was just as proud and prim as before, but she had no qualms about invading his space, her arms gesturing as much as the hand-cuffs would allow her to, and her feet fidgeting about his ow. She seemed- despite the aforementioned witch-binding hand-cuffs around her wrists, which Gabriel noticed, were still turning her wrists redder and redder- rather pleased, and it was beginning not only to irritate him, but to raise suspicions as to why. This in turn, along with her unbroken string of petty chitchat, and the tight confines of the car, were definitely the primary contributors to his growing madness.

Of course, his older brother Satan and his long-lost aunt the Darkness, a force as old as time, being on the loose and the imminent destruction of his Father’s Creation, added a little weight to his mood as well.

He fixed his eyes on the road ahead. The Sun was beginning to sink below the horizon, sending waves of pink, red and orange light across the desert, turning its ochre colour into a vibrant red. There were no clouds in the sky, so the colours were free to dance upwards with no hindrance, fading into the darkening dome of the heavens. By craning his neck, he could even see the pale dots of the first stars of the night appearing, and the thin crescent of the Moon.

“Gabriel,” Rowena’s shrill Scottish twang pierced whatever semblance of peace was sweeping over him.

“What?” His tone was harsh, as intended.

“Have you still got that key?” She had been asking this frequently throughout the car trip. Every time, Gabriel pulled said key out of his pocket, laying on its bed of old fabric, waved it in front of her for her confirmation, then shoved it roughly back into his pocket. This time, however, as he reached into his jeans to retrieve it, his hand touched only worn denim. The frustration that had been building up this entire time began to break the surface of his resolve.

“Where is it?” The harshness of his tone intensified; could the cacti outside feel it, he had a feeling they would have tucked in their spines, uprooted themselves and run the other way.

“I don’t know what you mean.” It was the wrong reply. Out of sheer exhaustion, Gabriel refrained from ripping her head off.

At that point, the car hit another pothole, causing the car to swerve, and Dean to let out a string of curses that would have shocked Gabriel’s brother. As the car spun, Rowena and Gabriel were pushed into Cas; somehow, at one point all three managed to fit into the space in which just Cas and Gabe had been sitting, an experience all vowed silently to never acknowledge nor speak about, even at knife-point. However, during the spin, the key spilled out of the folds of Rowena’s dress and its own scrap of fabric, landing between Cas’ feet. Before Rowena could act, Cas scooped the key up, and clapped it into Sam’s hands in the front seat, diagonally opposite from Rowena.

As the car straightened, she was thrown back against her side of the car, a cry of rage escaping her as she fought against her chains. Dean slammed on the brakes, causing Rowena to jolt forward into the back of his seat with a sickening crunch. As she was thrown back, Gabriel saw blood on her nose and mouth.

“What the bloody hell was that?!” She screamed, hair a mess and feathers clearly ruffled. Without a word, Dean burst out of his door, yanked open hers and pulled her out. Cas and Sam immediately rushed out, with Gabriel on their heels.

When they emerged, Dean was holding Rowena up against the Impala, arm against her throat.

“Let me go!” She was screaming loud enough to send a herd of big-horned sheep dashing for the hills nearby. With a loud thud, suddenly Dean was on the ground, his own nose now bloody. “That’ll teach you to manhandle me! You think you can treat me like this? With no consequences? Turn your ear to me, fool! Out of the south comes the storm, and out-” Her sentence was cut off by a gentle touch from Cas, sending her to the ground in a heap of red hair and velvet fabric, unconscious.

Sam knelt beside his brother, shaking him a little too roughly, given that he’d just been knocked out by a witch. Blood still dripped down from his nose, and his words were slurred to the extent of being unrecognizable. Cas moved quickly, gently tapping his fingers against Dean’s forehead, a well-practiced fluidity. Dean leapt to his feet, fists poised to defend.

“Woah!” Sam held up his hands in surrender, “Calm down! She’s out, Cas fixed you, we’re good to go.”

Dean’s breathing was still heavy, but he lowered his fists. Sam gave him a soft pat on the shoulder, and handed him a water bottle from the car. Dean refused, placing the bottle on the roof of the car and pushing past him to get back into the driver’s seat. When he slammed the door, the car shook with such force that the bottle, already teetering precariously where it had been carelessly deposited, fell, rolling down the ditch to the left side of the road. Even before it had ceased its descent, flies were gathering, sucking futilely at the plastic, fixed on the water within. 

There were a couple more jolts as Cas and Sam awoke Rowena and jostled her back into the car. From within he could hear a few more curses, before the muffled sounds of some old rock song began to drown out the noise. Gabriel found his eyes wandering. They drifted past the shining black metal of the Impala, to the scrubby, stump-littered plains of the Petrified Forest. It was an accurate name; the whole area seemed frozen in time, though with searing heat rather than with icy cold. The animals and rocks seemed to hang in status with the pieces of tree-trunk, forever poised in the moment of their death. The shrill cry of a buzzard split through the sound of the flies and the deep, bass of the music; it sat, body black and gleaming, pecking at the remains of some poor reptile, atop an old tree stump. It occurred to Gabriel that the petrified pieces of wood scattered over the landscape were the closest thing to a proper forest that bird would likely ever experience. The thought stood in stark contrast to the memory of the dove, resting warmly in the heights of a rich, green pine forest. The buzzard looked at Gabriel, its red, shriveled head tilted at an angle that, for whatever reason, made Gabriel distinctly uncomfortable.

Suddenly, Dean’s voice, impatient as usual, cut through the reverie, something Gabriel was, for once, grateful for. He inserted himself again between Cas and Rowena, and let the music and gentle hum of the engine wash away the unease.

***

The sky had turned into a deep navy blue by the time Rowena determined that they were in the correct location. The cool desert air swept over him as he followed Cas out of the car, his feet crunching against the gravel. Crickets hummed in the darkness, though where they were hiding he had no clue; the landscape was just as arid as it had been for hours, though now he saw not even buzzards and flies.

“Lead the way,” Dean pushed Rowena along the road, a gun poised at her back. “Come on, move it, these are witch-killing bullets.”

That seemed to motivate her, as she quickened her step, though she didn’t lead them along the main road. Instead, she set off across the desert, through the rocks and shrubs and dead trees. Gabriel shared a look with Sam and Cas, but they followed her nonetheless. After about fifteen minutes of walking through nothing, and seemingly towards nothing, Gabriel was able to look behind him and only barely see the Impala in the distance, gleaming in the moonlight. Gabriel was thankful for the light the moon provided; it was full tonight, and lit up the desert so that it shone silver. The land seemed as frozen as it had during the day-light, and he mused that perhaps the trees had been petrified by their fear of being stuck forever in the arid landscape around him, rather than from the heat or the cold or the millions of years they had been buried.

They stumbled through the night for about another five minutes, until, abruptly, Rowena came to a stop before a seemingly ordinary tree-stump. It was petrified, as the rest of them were, but had no clear difference that Gabriel could see.

“This is it?” Dean was as curt as usual. “You brought us fifteen hours to look at an old tree stump?”

Rowena looked sideways at him, eyes narrowed. She fixed her posture, and spoke.

“Apertus.” It was a single word, and not one Gabriel would have ever associated with magic or witchcraft; he supposed that it was different when a witch spoke it.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, barely visible at first, a small green dot of light appeared in the centre of a knot on the tree stump. The light grew and grew, in size and brightness, until it was about the size of a golf ball. When it reached this stage, it paused, still glowing for a moment, then faded, leaving behind a lock. Rowena said nothing more; she didn’t need to.

Sam removed the key from his pocket; it seemed too small and frail in his hand, and shone dully in the moonlight. Before Sam could move to place it in the lock, Gabriel stepped in, gently plucking it from his fingers. A heat bloomed in Gabriel’s mind as he remembered what those fingers felt like on his skin. Sam furrowed his brow and tilted his head, but didn’t argue. Perhaps Gabriel’s thoughts had shown on his face, or perhaps it was a query on his actions. The latter was likely the case, as Dean and Cas had similar expressions on their faces, though not one spoke a word. Gabriel noticed a small smile on Rowena’s lips; it was hard to miss, her red lips now a dark purple in the night, standing in stark contrast to her pale skin, which now seemed to glow in the light from the full moon hanging overhead **.** With a deliberate movement, she stroked her ear, turning her head to side slightly, then returning her gaze to him.

His eyes met hers as he moved towards the stump, and a sharp pang of discomfort flared up deep in his gut. He had to force himself to break their stare, and knelt, slowly, before the tree. The rocks dug into his knees, but they didn’t hurt him. Placing one hand on the trunk to steady himself, he drew up the key to the lock. It was difficult for him to tell what material exactly the lock was made of; it seemed to be some strange mix of stone and metal, and was cold to the touch. As he slid the key in, the feeling of distinct dread crept up from his stomach and to his heart, icy and taut.

Turning the key, the feeling grew, spreading through his lungs, stifling his breath. As it clicked, it seemed as though a levee broke inside him, and he collapsed to the ground. Around him, he saw the others drop to the ground, one by one. The key disappeared into the stump, as the lines in the bark began to unfold. They curled back, peeling away layer by layer. It seemed as though for every layer of bark that unfolded, a layer of cold was added to the growing swell inside him. His thighs began to lock up, as though someone was slowly dipping him into dry ice, while the cold spread to his shins and toes. His mind, however, was still searing with heat, and his arms, though numb, were moveable.

Gabriel managed to roll over on his back, facing the stars. But it was not the stars he saw, but Rowena’s face, blotting out both stars and moon. She had a broad smile on her face, and was clutching whatever had been in the stump.

“I told you,” she began, “‘Out of the south comes the storm, And out of the north the cold.’ Job 37:9.” Her smile then twisted, turning into an ugly frown. “I am the cold, and right here in my hand, is the storm.” At that, she held out her scroll with one hand, and with the other, reached into Gabriel’s jacket and retrieved his blade. As she rose, the ice finally began to lock up his arms, and what pitiful spark remained in him, began to ebb away. Gabriel felt the cold dark that he had been in, months before, beginning to swallow him, and the fear of returning there engulfed him. He had often wondered where angels went when they died; a part of them had hoped it was simply nothing, no consciousness at all. There were many times, when he was in the dark, that he had wished for such. He had suppressed the memories of his time there, buried them under other things: finding the Winchesters, stopping Amara, dealing with Lucifer, but every second of his time in that place now resurfaced.  With it, came the deepest dread that he had ever experienced. As the world grew black, he fixed Sam in his sights, his prone figure slowly fading. The sight of Sam’s body, still and white, lying before him, and the sheer terror of the dark, was enough to cause that spark in his mind to begin to hatch flames again. They leapt and danced in his mind, thawing his face, down which tears began to fall. The warmth spread, melting the hold the ice had on his lungs, his arms, his hands. With the last of his strength, Gabriel pushed himself onto his belly.

He stretched one arm forward, skin cutting on the rocky ground. With every last ounce of his power, he planted the arm firmly in the earth, and heaved himself towards the trunk. Its bark was still curled outwards, and before it lay the key, gleaming dully in the moonlight. He breathed a shaky breath; the air felt like sandpaper on his throat and lungs. With a grunt, he heaved his other arm forward, pressing it into the ground and pulling himself within grabbing distance of the key. Collapsing onto his stomach, he straightened his arm, though it felt like it was breaking, as though he was snapping an icicle in two. Slowly, he curled his fingers around the key.

With an effort, he rolled himself onto his side. Rowena was still dawdling, stripping the others of their weapons and wallets, her back to him. The key in his palm, Gabriel turned his gaze to Sam. Every kiss, every touch, every thought he had ever had with Sam, resurfaced. He remembered the time he had first seen Sam, 30 years ago in Lawrence, wriggling about in his crib. He recalled Springfield, Mystery Spot, Wellington. Muncie was always going to be unforgettable. He realized that he didn’t keep coming back to them because of his brothers; plan; he had come back, every single time, for Sam. The flames broke through the ice cached around his heart and grace; they seared throughout his body, burning every last crystal, and shot out through his fingers. The fire engulfed the key, which crackled and sparked as it melted in his hand. It burnt, but the wounds would heal.

With the blaze still clinging to his hand, Gabriel rose. Behind the crackle of the flames, he heard the gasps of the others as they awoke. Rowena seemed to freeze where she crouched for a moment, though he suspected it was due to realization and fear rather than the icy cold that had crippled them. Slowly, she rose, still facing away, and let the items she had stolen fall to the ground. Gabriel couldn’t see her face, but he felt a smile on it. With deliberation, she raised her hands above her head, and turned, and, as suspected, a broad, too-white smile was stretched across her face.

“You won’t hurt me.” The words were spoken low and smooth.

Gabriel paused for a moment, then smiled back.

“I won’t,” he began, “but she will.”

There was a soft thud, and Rowena fell to the ground.


	25. Chapter 25

“You were late,” Anna fastened Rowena’s cuffs even tighter, redrawing the symbols Rowena had scratched through. Anna pulled out the hair pin tucked into the witch’s sleeve, tossing it aside.

 “Yeah,” Dean began, voice shaking, “we got caught up.”

“What exactly happened?” Balthazar set steaming cups of tea, spiked with rum, in front of all of them. Those affected had whatever blankets they were able to scrounge up draped around them, and Sam and Dean were clutching heat packs. They were all still feeling the effects, with Gabriel being no exception. The cold still ached in his bones, though it was thawing with the warm drink and soft blankets, and his joints had ceased to creak as he moved a while ago. Cas was doing only slightly worse, though the havoc the spell had wreaked on Sam and Dean was more severe.

Their faces were still pallid, while their fingers and lips were a deep indigo. The sound of their teeth chattering could be heard throughout the room, and the liquid in their mugs trembled as they held them. A pinkish color was beginning to return to their cheeks, but it was barely more than a dusting. Anna moved to place another blanket around Dean’s shoulders, but he pushed it towards Sam, who, eyes drooping, did nothing to object.

“Not sure,” Cas mumbled, lips blue, as he clutched at his drink.

“It was a kind of hex. It must have been the markings on the key; all of us touched it at some point. I’d say that’s why it was wrapped up. When we opened the, uh, trunk, it activated it,” Gabriel’s voice was shaky, as he rubbed his hands together, tucking them into his sleeves.  

“Is that correct?” Cas’ voice was smoother, stronger now, as he turned his gaze to Rowena, who had not spoken a word since Anna had knocked her out. Now, she inclined her head.

The scroll she had taken from the trunk lay- wrapped in its own cloth - in the center of the library table.

Anna seated herself between Sam and Rowena, leaning forward and letting her hands rest gently on the table before her. Her face and voice were calm.

“What does it do?” Anna focused her gaze solely on Rowena, and let the silence hang. Rowena tilted her head back slightly, then pursed her lips. Both continued to stare the other down. After several, excruciating moments of this, Anna sat back in her chair. With one smooth movement, she slipped her blade out of her sleeve, with the hilt resting snugly in the palm of her hand. With equal fluidity, she set the blade against Rowena’s right thumb, and let it sit there, its weight bearing down heavy enough to draw a small drop of blood from beneath the witch’s knuckle.

The others at the table exchanged glances, though none intervened.

Rowena’s mouth turned into a grimace. She leaned forward, meeting Anna’s gaze.

“Good luck completing the spell with a no-handed witch,” her voice was low, but livid.

“What spell?” Gabriel interjected.

“What do you think?” Rowena snapped her head around to address the rest of the table. “You think I’d go to all that trouble for a recipe for shortbread?” She nodded her head towards the yellowed scroll. “With that, I can take Amara down for sure.”

Her shark grin again crept across her lips, and a cold knot formed in Gabriel’s stomach. The knot tightened as he went through the list of other ideas they had in regards to defeating Amara, a thought train that ended as soon as it had begun.

“Of course,” she continued, “I will need to have these cuffs off for the spell. As soon as possible, really.”

“Your cuffs come off when we say they come off. Any sooner, and your hands will be coming off with them, believe me,” Dean’s voice was beginning to muster some of its old bravado. Him and Sam’s faces had turned a few shades closer to their usual tanned color, and the sounds of their teeth chattering could no longer be heard.

Gabriel, throwing off his blanket, stood and pulled the scroll closer towards him, taking care to ensure the old cloth they had put it in was the only thing with direct contact to his skin.

As he unfurled it, dust bloomed up into the air, and the paper itself creaked with the strain. It was at that point he realized that the paper was not in fact paper, but thin, old and stained pieces of human skin, knitted together at irregular intervals, though with what Gabriel did not attempt to ascertain.

Cas stood beside him, allowing his blanket to fall from his shoulders. Dean stiffened, keeping his gaze fixed on him. Castiel’s brow furrowed and his eyes squinted, as he scanned the markings that were scattered in seemingly random patterns over the surface of the scroll. Suddenly, the muscles on his face smoothed out, though they were not replaced by any hint of relief.

“Cas?” Dean’s voice was tense. He tried to stand, though after raising himself no more than a few inches, collapsed back into his seat.

Anna had also caught the look on Cas’ face, and inserted herself between the two of them.

“What is it?” Worry lines had now broken out on her forehead, and her knuckles were white where they gripped her blade.

“I can’t read this,” Cas began, “but aesthetically, it very much mimics the Book of the Damned. This is human skin,” he pointed to a blank spot on the scroll’s surface, though allowed his finger to hover no closer than three inches above it, “and these symbols, they do look similar to those in the Book,” he continued.  

“But that’s the thing that bloody released the Darkness? Shouldn’t we be staying as far away from that thing as possible, if not burning the damn thing?” Balthazar interjected, downing the last of the whiskey.

“Yeah we should,” Dean’s voice was curt, though Gabriel couldn’t really blame him, given his history with the thing. With this Dean threw off his blanket, with slightly too much force. He rubbed his face in his hands, leaning back in his chair.

“On the other hand…” A crack of thunder split Rowena’s words, as the steady hiss of rain began to emanate from above them. Another crash sounded, this time loud enough to shake the bunker. Even Gabriel jumped at the noise, as the rumble reverberated through the building. The lights flickered, dying for a moment, then sputtered back to half-light.

“Where’s the fuse box?” Gabriel sighed, already moving towards the stairs.

“Outside,” Sam began, standing and laying his blanket down on the back of the chair, “I’ll come with you.”

Gabriel opened his mouth to protest, but Sam passed him so swiftly it was all he could to do to scurry up the staircase behind him. The door squealed as it opened, though its dissent was all but inaudible beneath the cacophony of the storm. Both he and Sam hitched their jackets over their heads and scrambled up the hill. Within seconds, both were drenched; small streams poured down from the locks of their hair, and their shoes squelched as they stepped. The box itself stood on a lonely, rusted pole tucked away amongst the trees that grew atop the bunker. The metal was so decayed that holes had begun to form in some parts, and the door was warped with age to the extent that it no longer shut properly.

The old, dimly glowing lights inside the box were completely foreign to Gabriel, though Sam’s hands moved over them with deft skill. Gabriel glanced around nervously at the storm; hail had begun to fall and was pelting down around them, and southerly winds had picked up so that their coats whipped in the breeze. A pang of fear went through him as his surroundings again turned cold and dark. He turned his gaze to the north, the gusts of air pushing at his back. The rain around him blurred his vision; he took a few, wary steps forward, his eyes darting from before him and back to Sam. Abruptly, after his sixth cautious step, the rain no longer fell on him, nor did the wind continue to paw at his back. Looking up, the skies were clear, shining with stars and the glow of the moon to his right, half-hidden behind the clouds just behind him. His eyes followed its glow down, along the edge of the storm. Edge was the perfect word to describe it; in a perfectly straight line to both his right and left, the rain fell in a curtain for as far as he could see; even the leaves on the northern faces of the trees, whose southern halves were dripping wet, were completely dry and still.

The corner of his eye then caught an orange spark in the trees, and he plunged back into the tempest. He found Sam shaking the fuse box, looking more dejected than ever.

“What’s happening?” Gabriel’s voice was barely audible.

“It’s blown!” Sam called to him, slamming the door shut. Gabriel grabbed onto Sam’s arm, and pulled him back to the safety of the bunker. They collapsed inside, the room bathed in the red hues of the backup generator’s lights.

Dean met them at the base of the stairs. “What’s going on?”

“Fuse box is blown,” Sam pulled off his jacket, mopping his hair with it, “The storm must have taken it out.”

At that moment, a tiny cog hidden away somewhere at the back of his mind clicked into place, and in one, fluid movement, Gabriel had Rowena pinned against the wall of the library, hand to her throat.

“What is this?” There was an air of desperation in his voice.

Rowena, for once, was not smiling.

“What are you talking about?” Her voice was shallow and cracked.

“Job 37:9.” His vessels heart beat quickened, and the warm touch of anger began to seep from it.

“I don’t know!”

“Yes, you do! Why Job 37:9?” His voice rose clear over the thunder.

“I don’t know! I saw it in my crystal ball, I assumed it meant the scroll!” She was squealing now, and gave a futile kick to Gabriel’s groin.

“And what about the north?”

Rowena gave no answer, wheezing under his grip. He loosened it slightly, only enough to allow her to breathe and speak.

“I thought I was the north! I don’t know anymore! I might have gotten it wrong, I don’t know! Please, let me down. I don’t know anything more.” By this point tears were streaming down her face, and her breath was coming in hiccups.

Rage was still bubbling up inside him, its heat blurring his eyes and mind. He jumped as a cold hand was laid on his shoulder, heavy and grounding.

“Gabriel,” Sam’s voice was soft, “let her go. She doesn’t know any more.” Sam pulled back slightly, still gripping Gabriel.

His fingers still stiff, Gabriel managed to pry them away from Rowena’s neck, allowing her to fall to the floor. She gasped for breath, small cries escaping her mouth as she massaged her neck. Sam continued to pull Gabriel back, then grabbed his other shoulder to turn him to face him. With that, he pulled Gabriel into his arms, and squeezed. The stares of the others in the room fell away, as did his strength. The heat in him died as the cold in Sam faded, leaving them both cocooned in a soft warmth. Gabriel closed his eyes, and no longer saw the dark, cold place he had been suspended in for so long, and was instead greeted with a cosy, warm womb in which he floated, entangled in Sam’s arms.

At that, Sam pushed Gabriel away, though the warmth remained in him. All eyes were glued on them, but Gabriel could not find the room to care.

“We need to head south,” Sam broke the silence in the room.

Dean’s eyes were bulging out of his head, and his mouth hung open slightly. After a few moments spent in this state, he came out with a simple “Ok” and walked stiffly to the garage, Cas at his heels. If someone were to have dropped a pin on the floor of the library at that moment, Gabriel wouldn’t have been surprised if the noise of its landing could rival the thunder.

Nazareth, Texas:

They had followed the storm, hail pelting down around them and wind buffeting them at their backs, for over eight hours, the storm drenching every blade of grass in their wake. From the pine forests of Kansas to the arid scrub lands of Texas, the storm had carved its path. Despite the hail and the slippery roads, however, the Impala had remained unscathed, and continued steadfastly on its journey with barely any petrol in its tank.

Gabriel was sandwiched in the back with Sam to his right and Anna to his left, while Cas was seated in the passenger seat (he had taken the position with a broad smile on his face, and had been eagerly choosing songs the entire drive, a privilege he was not accustomed to). Dean had not spoken a word to either Sam nor Gabriel the entire drive.

As they passed the derelict sign declaring their arrival in the sleepy town of Nazareth, built haphazardly in the midst of the arid northeast of Texas, the pounding rain and thunder that had chased them from Kansas ended, as abruptly as it had begun, leaving them blinking at the Sun as it hung heavy in the sky, now clear. The town itself was unassuming, largely made up of one-storey, dusty houses, with the only noticeable feature being the church steeple, which rose up in the near distance, its orange brick stark against the blue of the sky.

Dean rolled down the windows, and allowed his arm to dangle loosely out. Cas muted the radio, as the silence of the town crept over them. The car crawled through the streets, seeing only a couple of children playing in a sprinkler, and an old man laboring over his cacti-infested garden. The church bells rang, too loud in the quiet air. A pair of crows feasting on some shriveled lizard cawed in weak protest, but went swiftly back to their meal.

None of them said a word, as they wound through the lifeless streets, churning up dust and sending the doves pottering around in the road scurrying away. They came to a rest in front of an old, orange and white brick building surrounded by a dusty lawn and white wooden fence; a sign outside proclaimed it the Holy Family’s Catholic Church. The faint hum of voices could be heard inside, tripping clumsily along to a piano churning out old gospel songs. As the dust the car had churned up settled, Dean stepped out with Cas at his heels. They mumbled something to each other, then Cas waved his hand in the general direction of the back seat.

The doors of the church creaked as they opened, and a cool breeze washed over them. Inside, the church was relatively barren, but it was shaded and cool, and seemingly packed with almost the entire town. Adults stood or knelt, while children sat atop their parents’ shoulders and babies wriggled in their mothers’ arms. The congregation spilled out the side doors onto the dusty lot surrounding the church, holding old umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun and fervently fanning themselves with pamphlets and sheet music.

The priest that stood in the nave sang the loudest of all, his deep, booming voice projecting off of the tight walls to impressive effect. Some of the doves that they had seen on the road to the church had made themselves at home in the eaves, where, despite the blistering heat, they huddled together in one long line. Their coos were barely audible over the singing of the congregation, but the birds certainly did not appear to have any intention of ceasing their song, regardless of any clash.

Dean was the first to move, Castiel by his side. The crowd parted, though Gabriel couldn’t see how they managed to pack each other even closer than before, as they trod slowly up the aisle. Sam took Gabriel’s arm, pulling him through the gaps formed by the others. Gabriel looked to his left briefly to guide Anna after them, though behind him he only saw other townsfolk, and the door lightly swinging. He thought of going after her, but the crowd was already blocking the doorway, and the only way to go was forward.

The heat from the other bodies in the church and the tight quarters were suffocating. He tried to walk faster, but the congregation moved too slow. He felt a knot of frustration rise in his chest when Dean and Cas stopped at the end of the aisle, with he and Sam stuck in among the crowd. Some churchgoers tried to pry themselves in between them, but Sam pressed harder against them, and they dropped back.

“Dean?” Sam called over the hum, “What is it?” Sam shook his brother’s shoulder in an attempt to spur a response, though Dean remained resolutely still. Out of desperation, Sam turned to Cas, shaking his shoulder even harder.

Cas responded, turning to face them. His eyes were wide and his lips pressed tightly together. Without saying a word, he moved aside from Dean, blocking the congregation as Sam and Gabriel stepped through to the nave. Cas closed the distance between himself and Dean, and gripped his hand so tight that Dean flinched. Gabriel found his feet frozen to the floor, and he was certain his expression must have matched Cas’.

The priest then gripped Gabriel’s shoulder with surprising strength.

“What ailment do you suffer from, my child?” His jowls wobbled as he talked, and spittle came flying out in all directions. With this, he pried Gabriel’s hand from Sam’s, and clutched it in both of his; the priests’ hands were surprisingly strong, and disconcertingly clammy. He guided Gabriel further forward.

“Simply touch of the prophetess’ skin and of all illness you shall be cleared! Our Father’s power; it courses through her. The Lords’ power will heal,” The priest declared, shouting over the din.

He continued to preach, inelegantly droning along to the hymns the pianist was playing, the stanzas interspersed with Biblical quotes, ones about heaven and healing and Jesus; Gabriel found very few quoted the darker ones these days. Despite the raucous, Gabriel was able to drown out the noise, and instead focused on the unconscious figure before him. With slow, calculated steps, he moved toward her, and knelt at her side. He cupped her cheek in his palm, running his thumb over her dark skin.

Leaning down, he whispered in her ear.  

“Raphael?” It wasn’t loud enough for anyone else in the building to hear, nor, apparently, for Raphael herself to hear, as she remained listless.

Gabriel turned to shoot a panicked and pointed look at the others. All three had matching expressions of shock, though he noticed Cas’ face had more worry lines than the others. After another desperate jerk of Gabriel’s head, Dean broke out of his trance, and began to scan the room. He slipped behind Sam and Cas and ducked quickly into the transept out of sight. The singing in the congregation continued to escalate in frequency; the pigeons in the rafters one by one began to leave, warbling indignantly as they left. Both the songs of the pigeons and the church-goers were cut through by the sound of a fire alarm, and Dean and Sam voices rose above it, demanding that the church to be evacuated. Sam put his arm around the priest, and guided him outside, while glancing at Gabriel over his shoulder, eyebrows arched.

Cas made a flimsy barrier between the panicked evacuation and Gabriel, as Gabriel scooped up his sister in his arms and hurried out through the back of the church. They waited a moment for the crowd to begin to assemble to the left of the church, and made a dash for the Impala. They piled into the back of the car next to Sam, with Raphael on their laps. Anna gunned the engine, kicking up storms of dust and gravel on the half-paved roads; Dean flinched at the screech of the tyres.

“What the hell?” Dean turned to look at them “That’s Raphael, right? That’s the vessel he died in?”

“That seems to be how it’s going, yeah,” Sam panted, rolling down his window, and running his hand back over his hair.

“I wouldn’t hold your breath on that,” Anna looked back at them through the rear view mirror.

“What do you mean?” Dean was glancing between Anna’s hands on the wheel and the back seat.

“I mean,” Anna shifted gears as they reached the highway, “that it’s not impossible that they wouldn’t pick another vessel to come back in. Even if a vessel is destroyed, you can remake it. Mine was destroyed last time and I got it back. I’m just saying, don’t write it off that Lucifer, and any other angel for that matter that returns, would look like the vessel they went out in. It might be one prior to the one they died or got locked up in, or it might be one we don’t recognise at all. Lucifer went into the Cage wearing Sam, but he’s not walking around in his skin at the moment.”

“Yeah, that’s true. You want me to drive?” Dean’s voice was tense.

“Given that you look like you might have a heart attack if I don’t let you behind the wheel soon, yeah, go ahead,” Anna replied, pulling over. “Look, I’m gonna head back to the bunker; it’s about time.”

She looked over her shoulder to Gabriel, “You wanna give her to me or are you coming too?”

Gabriel adjusted his grip on Raphael, then raised his eyebrows at Anna. She smiled a tired smile, then clicked her fingers.

Heaven, After Lucifer’s Fall: 

Gabriel stood stoically beside his older brother. Michael was with Father, healing his wounds from the battle; he had taken the brunt of the injury. Raphael stood straight and tall, wings adorned with gold armour and jewellery; all pieces were finer than anything the younger angels would ever wear, including Gabriel, though they paled beside Michael’s. Still, they achieved the desired effect; awe, reverence and most importantly obedience, in the rest of their Father’s host.

The furthest corners of Heaven and the Garden had been shaken, and every angel and soul had felt it. They had lost an archangel, and were left amidst the debris to realise what this meant. Their uncertainty was the reason why Raphael and Gabriel now stood on their pedestal before them, words of reassurance and purpose pouring from their mouths; well, Raphael’s mouth. Gabriel had been ordered to remain quiet, and follow Raphael’s lead.

Michael’s words and the sight of him after the battle still rang in his mind, as did Lucifer’s screams. The crack of each blow they planted on each other would not leave his memory, though he would never wish them gone.

He felt Raphael’s words rushing past him, though it was as through it was through a glass screen; none of what he was saying registered, nor at that point did Gabriel care. He heard the cheers of the other angels, as they stood straight in their perfectly uniform lines before him. As they dispersed, he saw smiles on their faces. Gabriel’s mouth was twisted downwards, and his eyes stung.

When the last of the angels had drifted away, Raphael’s shoulders and wings relaxed. He pulled off his armour as he walked away. Gabriel followed suit, handing it to their waiting armour-bearers.

“Raphael?”

His brother stopped at the sound of his name. He straightened his shoulders, but he didn’t look around.

“Yes?”

“Does it hurt for you too?” Gabriel shoved his hands into the pockets of his tunic, as they all wore.

“I don’t know what you mean.” With that, Raphael disappeared. Gabriel was left, standing alone in the vast expanse of Heaven’s halls, his only company the white and gold angels that smiled down at him through the paintings that lined the marble walls. It occurred to Gabriel that never in his life had he laid eyes on such happy creatures.

The Men of Letters Bunker: Present Day:

Gabriel laid Raphael gently on the couch in the library. The townspeople had dressed her in the kind of clothes that humans assumed all celestial beings went around in; a long white and gold dress, tattered and with a hideous amount of frills, lace and silk, accented with dollar-store faux gold jewellery, likely all scrounged up from the thrift shop or perhaps the church’s costume line up for its Christmas nativity play.

Gabriel was certain Raphael would not approve of the clothing choice; on the other hand, she had never shown any care whatsoever in the past in regards to her appearance, aside from the times Michael would command him to wear armour or jewellery to address God’s host. Still, it was unlikely that her current get-up would be easy to fight in, which was one thing he knew would concern her.

With a click of his fingers, the white dress was gone, and he had replaced it with a simple business suit; black suit jacket, white shirt, black pants and shiny leather shoes.

“Do we wake her up?” Balthazar had retrieved the jar they’d stashed the rest of the angel go-go juice, and was waving it in Gabriel’s face.

“It might be best to do it before Cas gets home,” Anna added, “cos of the whole, you know…”

“Murdering her in cold blood? Perfectly familiar with it, thank you,” Balthazar said, sipping from the champagne glass in his hand.

“Yeah, ok,” Gabriel sighed, reaching for the jar. He produced a spoon out of the air, and, after pricking her finger for a drop of blood, shoved a decent spoonful into his sisters’ mouth.

****

Gabriel was still rubbing his throat, and Cas dejectedly massaging the bruise on his cheekbone and mopping up the blood that was still slowly oozing form his nose. Raphael had not taken well to resurrection, and had taken even worse to Gabriel and Cas. Eventually, they had calmed her down enough to catch her up, though she hadn’t had particularly measured reactions to their actions since she had died, which, Gabriel had to admit, was pretty excusable; they had fucked up the world pretty royally a few times since then, with some less-than-high-quality justifications.  

“So what’s your plan? I’m assuming you have one given that it’s because of you The Darkness is out again,” She eyed Cas warily, and wouldn’t even spare a glance at Gabriel.

Dean gestured to the scroll, still wrapped up in the centre of the table. Raphael reached for it, causing the rest of the room to tense up, leaping half out of their seats to stop her. She looked around, puzzled.

“What? You don’t trust me?”

“Well, I me-” Dean began, but was cut off by Sam.

“We don’t know if it’s safe to touch with your bare skin. Just the key to the … box it was in put a hex on all of us we barely survived. Just be careful; hold it through the cloth.”

Raphael again moved to grab the scroll, slower, more carefully this time. As she unfurled it, her face turned to stone.

“Where did you get this?” Her voice was softer than Gabriel had heard it in a long while.

“A witch: Rowena. She had it stashed away.”

“Wherever it was, it should have stayed there,” voice curt, she re-rolled the paper and pushed it back towards the center of the table, then crossed her legs and arms, face still.

“Why?” It was the first thing Cas had said since they discovered Raphael in Texas.

“Because I say so,” Raphael’s voice was final.

Silence filled the room, hanging over them for a moment too long.

Dean, in his typical brawny manner, swept it away.

“Can you read it?”

Raphael glared in Dean’s direction.

“It would be an abomination for one of angelic status to be able to read that thing. It’s practically evil incarnate. The word of the Devil,” The last word she spoke with utter contempt; if she had any remaining feelings of compassion for her fallen brother, she certainly was skilled in hiding them.

“So no?”

Raphael’s brow deepened, and her lips pressed even tighter together.

“Alright,” Dean continued, running his hands over his face, “I hate this more than anyone, but…” here he trailed off, taking a swig of whiskey. Sam continued for his brother.

“We need Rowena.”

“That witch? You have her still?”

The rest of the room looked towards Balthazar, whose gaze was focused on the few drops of drink left in his glass. Sam cleared his throat, causing Balthazar’s gaze to snap back to the rest of the table, eyebrows raised.

“What?”

“Rowena, where is she?” Dean barked, “We left her and Crowley in your charge.”

“You charge?” Sam grinned at him.

“Shut up,” Dean replied with a low huff.

“Tied up in the interrogation room together,” Balthazar poured himself another glass, “though I’d give them a little family reunion. Mother-son bonding and all that.”

****

“Oh, look Fergus, the British are coming,” Rowena piped up as Balthazar pried the interrogation room door open.

“Hilarious,” he responded, roughly pulling her up from the rusty chair she’d been seated in. Gabriel took hold of her other arm as they closed the door behind them, again leaving to a stream of curses courtesy of Crowley.

“Didn’t you ever teach him not to swear?” Balthazar retrieved his glass from where he had rested it as they entered the hallway.

“I wasn’t a fan of involved parenting,” Rowena tripped on the last word as she stumbled up the stairs to the library. She opened her mouth to continue, but the words that she had intended to speak turned into a small squeak at the sight of Raphael. Her mouth stayed open until, upon seating her, Gabriel gently lifted her jaw to shut it.

Raphael looked at her with more than a slight amount of disdain, something she carried on perfectly into her next, sentence, as curt as was typical.

“So? Can you put her away?”

Rowena emitted a small squeak in return, and shakily nodded her head.

This seemed to satisfy Raphael- ‘please’ would have been the wrong word- as she pushed a pen and paper towards the witch across from her.

“Tell us what you need, so we can all get back to killing each other.”

 Gabriel couldn’t hear even a trace of humor in her voice.


	26. Chapter 26

The Beginning: 

When Gabriel entered the world, the first thing he knew was the burning heat of his Father. Warmth and light surrounded him. His first emotion was a deep, unyielding love for Him, and his first thought to serve Him. After a few moments of being enveloped in this pure ecstasy, God released him from his arms, and allowed him to float away from him among the dark of the universe.

A brief moment of unease gripped him as his Father drifted out of his grasp. The unease that had begun to coat him shattered as he gently bumped into another being behind him; the impact sent him floating lightly forward again, though his movement was suddenly ceased as the being he had collided with gripped his hand, turning him around.

That was the first time he saw any of his brothers; it was Lucifer who had gripped him and held him steady. He was not as bright as his Father, but he was still beautiful. Gabriel hovered in awe, eyes drifting over his brothers, tracing the lines of their wings and the curves of their graces. They flapped their wings, spinning around God and each other, running their hands over the newest addition to God’s Holy Host. Gabriel still clung to Lucifer; his wings were yet too weak to fly, and though he would not fall, as there was nowhere to fall to at that time, without the anchor of his brothers, he would drift, powerless, through the vacuum of space.

It was at this moment that Gabriel experienced for the first time the sensation of cold. New hands drifted over him, cool and dry, and larger than any of the other archangels. He gripped Lucifer’s hands even tighter, and pulled himself toward him in a vain attempt to escape the Darkness. She hummed with energy equal in power to his Father, though he didn’t find the comfort in it that he found in the power of God.

He felt his Father’s hand on him then, trying to brush Her away. The commotion was confusing, and ended with a sharp stab of pain.

Southeast Oregon, Present Day:

Gabriel sat, slumped over and pulling absentmindedly at the sparse clumps of grass, as the Sun beat down on him with rays of pale light. The land around him was almost bare, with only dying shrubs and bleakly coloured rocks and mesas. He could clearly see the horizon; upon it were no cars, nor houses, nor even a stray coyote or hare. Even the crows seemed to have deserted this area; the only sound was that made by Rowena as she shuffled around in the dirt, painting out symbols in bright red blood and whispering incantations to whatever power was listening.  

Raphael stood poised at the edge of the patch of bare ground on which she was working, blade in hand. Dean had a gun tucked into his jeans, filled with witch-killing bullets, something he had emphasized several times. Sam’s knee was pleasantly warm where it pressed up against Gabriel’s. He had not strayed from Gabriel’s side since they embraced in the Bunker, nor had he spoken a word, but his hand was warm where it rested on Gabriel’s knee, and his own hand warm atop Sam’s. Gabriel’s face remained still, and there was no longer a knot in his stomach.  

Despite the calm Sam’s presence afforded him, he had little confidence in the success of the spell they were going to conduct, but they had no other options, and the hourglass was running low. His news feed had been buzzing so incessantly with storm or fire warnings, or announcements of quarantine and conflict, that he had simply thrown away his phone. Which disasters represented the actions of Lucifer or Amara he had been unable to decipher; he was starting to see the family resemblance.

He felt Sam’s grip tighten on his as he dragged Gabriel to his feet. He became aware of the others moving back, while Raphael pulled him forward. He lost Sam’s hand, and stumbled towards Rowena in tow of his brother. Raphael gripped his arm so tight that he felt his grace begin to bruise; the insurance was unnecessary: he had no intent on fleeing. He was careful not to step into the patch of the bare ground before him; the space was devoid of grass in a perfect circle, filled with carefully laid lines of blood. The symbols curved and arched around each other, sprawling across the expanse in a complex web of patterns. They shaped themselves around the assortment of objects that Rowena had scattered over the soil: bones, crystals, rare leaves and spices and piles of stones. The magic was primitive and raw, though if they needed anything right now it was blunt force.

Rowena herself stood across from them on the other side of her masterpiece. Her eyes were fixed on the two archangels, a hunger starting to fill them. A lump formed in the back of his throat, and his breathing quickened. He felt Raphael’s hand trembling where it gripped him. When Rowena spoke, the voice was unrecognizable. It had no gender, but was layered with the voices of what sounded like millions: men, women, beasts of unknown origin, young and old, small and large. Something _else_ rumbled beneath them, dark and deep, building like a growling thunderstorm. Her eyes turned a pale, milky white, and her dress and hair whipped around her. The sweltering heat of the day turned into a blistering, biting cold, the kind that seeps into your heart and bones. He felt the cold darkness return, and turned his gaze to the sky as the light was swallowed.

The Beginning:

The unease again settled in as he began to drift, though he was moving far more quickly now. There was no sound; he didn’t know what it was yet to hear. But as he spiralled quickly away from the only other beings he knew of in the universe, what he saw was enough to cause him more pain than he had ever experienced. Something large and dark was beating against his Father, occasionally ceasing to bat his brothers away. The fight seemed astronomical to Gabriel, but the scuffle ended as quickly as it had begun, and the dark thing eventually fled. Gabriel tried to move his wings to return to his family, and though he could only twitch them; he could not fly. He opened his mouth to cry out- the movement was instinctual- though the vacuum of space absorbed the sound before it could reach them.

In one fluid motion, his Father stretched out towards him, clearing the distance between them with ease. He swept His arm, gleaming, around Gabriel and gently pulled him back. Gabriel could still feel traces of cold where the Darkness had touched him; they lingered, resisting even the heat of God. As he neared them, his brothers encircled him, their raw energy humming, running their hands over the cold parts of him, wrapping him up safely in their wings. The darkness of space was barely visible through the barrier formed by them, and the cold began to fade; again, Gabriel’s world turned into bliss.

Southeast Oregon, Present Day:

Dark clouds rippled above, blocking out the Sun and plunging them into a state of almost-darkness; the world seemed foggy, turned into grey scale.

Gabriel’s hand gripped Raphael’s with enough force to break it, but neither let go. He felt himself begin to freeze, though his heart still burned. Rowena, opposite them, began to lift; her dress fluttered, and her shoes slipped off as she rose through the air, mouth stretched open so far that tears had begun to form in her cheeks. Her hair had become a wispy grey, with black veins protruding from all intact flesh; her body was as rigid as if it had been dead for hours. Gabriel could feel his body locking up as well; though it felt like he was tearing his muscles, he managed to force his head around just enough so that he had an eye on Sam; the Winchesters had been thrown to the ground with the force of the gale, with the other angels crouching over them, hands before their faces.

As the cold set in deeper, Gabriel’s head was twisted back to the front by some other force. The clouds above roiled, spiraling down to the ground. They were as thick and black as pitch, and more fervent in their descent than any other cloud Gabriel had seen. The dark mass continued downwards in the shape of a cone, wind of unknown origin whipping them into a tornado. As the clouds touched down on the circle of bare earth before them, the marks of red blood seared, bursting up in embers and setting the patch of dirt alight. The fire subsided to leave the symbols still glowing orange and red. Though his eyes were beginning to fill with the dirt that the wind stirred up, as hard as he tried, Gabriel couldn’t look away, nor close his eyes. He desperately wanted to turn, to run to Sam and sweep him off to some unknown, safe corner of the universe, but his feet were planted so firmly on the ground that they may as well have been welded to it.

Just as the gale seemed to have reached its peak, the clouds began to lift, though they continued to swirl as they ascended. The sky remained blanketed with them, and the world continued to appear as though he was viewing it through a black and white filter. Rowena fell to the ground, twitching and still rigid. As the column of cloud lifted, in its place stood a woman; her dress was a deep, rich black, hanging still on Her body despite the wind. Her hair and eyes were both a rich brown: the only things in color in the landscape. Her skin glowed white, stretched thin over Her high cheekbones. Gabriel had yet to have seen Her human body, but he recognized the hum of energy that emanated off of Her; it was as powerful as his Father’s, but sang in a different tone.  

Her gaze was fixed solely on the archangels, eyes wide and mouth hanging open slightly; Her eyebrows were turned up, forming worry lines across Her forehead. A heavy silence came over the world. It hung, untouchable, but dense and engulfing, weighing down on their shoulders. Gabriel recalled the pain and pressure She had subjected him to in only their first meeting. His aunt had always been curious, but was unrelenting, and, more dangerously, she fell victim too easily to envy. She was, by nature, corrupting.  

Her eyes drifted slowly between Gabriel and Raphael, coming to rest on where their hands joined. The upturned shape of Her eyebrows suddenly plunged downwards, wrinkling Her forehead, and Her mouth twisted down at the corners. With a flick of Her wrist, Gabriel and Raphael flung apart, and he heard the sound of the others behind them being thrown to the ground. Panic rose in his chest at the sound of Sam crying out, but as hard as he strained, his head remained stubbornly in Amara’s direction, and his feet stayed glued to the earth where he stood.

However, also in his line of sight was Rowena, who still lay behind Amara, on the edge of the warded circle. Gabriel was very practiced in using his peripheral vision; though his eyes had to stay where he was able to see Amara, Rowena was plain for him to see as she slowly began to move, whatever antecedent rigor mortis that had befallen her fading.

“What is this?” The words came out of Amara’s mouth in staccato. It was difficult to blame Her; She had been locked up an awful long time, and had missed the birth of language as modern Earth knew it. She raised both her hands, pointing one at each of them, “Why have you summoned me? Did your Father raise you stupid?”

The Beginning:

Of all Gabriel’s memories, the ones he recalled with the most clarity were those of the first few years of his life. He watched with a mixture of joy and fascination as his Father made attempt after attempt to create other forms of life, and with sorrow each time the Darkness beat it down and erased it. He did not know it initially, but he discovered later that She had made several attempts on the lives of the archangels, including himself; his Father and Michael had taken the brunt of the attacks, keeping the threat hidden for as long as they could.

He remembered the first time God placed his sword into his hand. He had watched with awe as the gleaming silver blades were given to his older brothers, and was shocked into a reverential silence as one was gifted to him as well; he had expected that they would have all been for the rest of the archangels, but not himself. He did not know what words to say, so instead flung his arms as wide as he could around God, bringing forth a deep, echoing laugh from his Father.

His first lesson was given by God Himself. He took Gabriel’s hand in His, positioning the knife in the correct position in his palm, folding His son’s fingers over the hilt. Rather than release Gabriel’s hand however, he took it, blade and all, into His own hands, stroking it gently with His thumb. He removed one hand to cup Gabriel’s face, and he felt the warm rush that God’ s touch elicited wash over him.

“Gabriel,” His voice boomed in Gabriel’s head, “I need you to remember something.”

He let the request hang in the air, until Gabriel gave a small nod.

“It is one thing to learn to take a life, though life is sparse here. It is another thing entirely, and the mark of a true soldier, to learn when to spare one.”

Southeast Oregon, Present Day:

Amara’s words seemed to fan the fire that had continued burning deep inside him. He tried to force his mouth open, to scream his anger at Her, but the most he managed was a trembling of his jaw, which quickly proved too strenuous as his muscles gave in and his face again locked up.

“Do you have your Father?” Her voice had a desperate undertone to it, but was still quiet.

She was greeted with silence.

“Do you have your Father?” She had raised her voice in volume now, though again she was met with no response. This seemed to be the last straw.

“Speak!” This time her voice was a scream, bouncing off of the distant mesas and reverberating through the barren landscape. She jerked both hands in Gabriel’s direction, and with the crack in her resolve, the spell locking Gabriel’s body melted. He collapsed to the ground, landing with his face in the dirt between two clumps of grass. Spitting out soil, he lifted his turning it to the side to see Raphael, still frozen, and behind him to the others, where they trembled and huddled together, the angels forming a barrier between the Winchesters and Amara. They were not frozen by Her spell, but by fear; regardless, they were useless against Her.

He shifted his gaze back to Amara, watching Rowena behind her at the same time. The witch had apparently returned to life enough to allow her to crawl on her belly, as she headed for the box they had used to carry the ingredients for the spell. She jolted as Amara screamed again at Gabriel.

“Where is your Father?” She began to move towards the edge of the circle. Gabriel scurried, moving frantically away from her, twisting in whatever way would increase the distance between the two fastest. She was nearing the grass on which he lay; his feet were no more than half a meter away from the boundary. He turned his gaze to Sam behind him and pushed himself once more. As he did, he felt something latch onto his foot, ceasing his frantic scurry. He whipped around to see his ankle caught up in a tangle of grass and roots. Amara made one final leap towards him, as he snapped the grass with one easy motion. The plain filled with a deafening crack as She hit the edge of the trap, bouncing back off of the invisible barrier and landing in the dirt inside.

Still reeling, She rolled in the dust in apparent pain, groaning with agony and anger. Gabriel heard two sets of footprints running towards him; Raphael reached him first, pulling him to his feet. Almost immediately after regaining his feet, Sam slammed into him, pulling him into his arms in a bear hug; if he hadn’t held on so tightly, Gabriel may have well been knocked to the ground with the ferocity of the embrace. As he wrapped his arms around Sam, breathing in the scent of old leather and books, the voices he had heard speaking through Rowena again began, in the same, unknown language. Gabriel’s eyes met Raphael’s, and, reluctantly, he extracted himself from Sam’s arms. Blades in hand, the two archangels positioned themselves on opposite sides of the circle; Gabriel a quarter of a way around the circle of bare earth to the right of Rowena, and Raphael positioned to her left. Amara had managed to raise Herself again to Her feet, gaze directed at the witch.

Her mouth twisted into an even fouler shape than before, and her brow plunged down in a sharp “V”. Her eyes began to glow black, something Gabriel had not previously thought possible, and Her hair and dress began to fly around Her. The thunderstorm above them began again to roil and boom, as the clouds again began to descend. But a whirlwind was whipping up around Rowena now as well, as she rose into the air once again. Whatever was speaking through her had risen its voice to a cacophonous level, as she began to emit a violet glow; it started in her chest, then spread up through her mouth, nose and eyes, and began to tint the space around her. The energy continued to build, flashing out from her in bolts of lightning. It gathered above her, churning with equal ferocity to the storm clouds Amara was creating overhead.

Gabriel fixed his eyes on his older brother. The energy coming off of Rowena was beginning to peak, flashing out in all directions. Raphael put his hand up toward Gabriel, and counted down with fingers. One; Amara began to scream, pieces of her dress breaking off and dissolving in the electrically charged air. Two; Gabriel glanced at Sam, who was again holding onto his brother, Cas before them, arms out to shield them. He managed to lock eyes with Sam, though it was for no more than a millisecond. Three; he turned his gaze back towards Raphael; Amara’s skin had begun to peel, bits of flesh dissipating as though they were made of the same fragile fabric Her dress.

As the light became blinding, Gabriel and Raphael sliced their hands in unison, and slammed them down into the bloody dirt; the earth around them buckled, with the marks Rowena had drawn again beginning to glow as embers do, bursting into flames the same neon violet color as the energy Rowena was throwing at the Darkness. High-pitched screams were now emanating from Her, as wisps of black smoke began to sprout from her. At first, a smile spread itself across his lips. After a few moments, however, the violet light began to subside, and the black clouds began to grow, though they were not emanating from Her wounds as he had thought, but from Her hands.

The earth around them cracked, breaking apart the wards drawn onto the soil. Her clothes and skin were still in tatters, the bones in Her law and limbs still showing, Her hair a tattered mess atop Her head; however, Her arms were spread wide, the smoke still churning; Rowena was still suspended in the air, face clenched and hands beginning to burn from the effort. As the purple light grew dimmer, she dropped lower and lower in the air, until she fell heavily to the ground. With the energy Rowena had been emitting gone, the landscape again fell into shadow. Gabriel focused his gaze on his aunt; She was still clearly weak, but in Her eyes he saw pure fury. He saw a flash of movement to the left of his gaze, but before Raphael could reach Her, She was gone. Raphael leaped at nothing, landing in the soil where Amara had stood.

The air was split with the piercing scream of rage that escaped Raphael’s mouth, as she drove her blade into the earth. Gabriel closed his eyes to block everything out, but the barren mesas, standing like sentinels around them, repeated the agony, echoing the scream back to the desolate landscape.

Heaven, After Lucifer’s Fall:

Michael’s words echoed in his mind, though they did not drown out the cries of pain emanating from one of their many healing rooms, tucked away from sight in the dark, barren corner of Heaven that everyone needs, but is never spoken of. Raphael had taken a particularly bad hit from Lucifer to one of his left wings; it had snapped his radius, ulna and humerus bones. The injury had been neglected in the immediate aftermath of the fight; Heaven had been in shambles, and Michael was badly injured. These were things that were of more importance than a broken wing; hence, it had been allowed to set, though not in the correct position. The bones needed to be re-broken. Each scream that came from the room was another one snapped and set back in place.

God refused to come to the healing rooms himself; He was in His throne room, giving orders to His scribe. Michael was still under orders to rest, and Gabriel was apparently not trusted to complete the simple task of breaking some bones-that task was left to a specialized healer- and had been exiled to the hall to wait. He loathed having to spend any prolonged period of time in the lower parts of Heaven; they were sterile, with clean white, lacquered walls and cold strip lights, boring, monochrome offices, and not a hint of anything remotely artistically inspired in sight.

He did feel pity for the angels who had to spend the vast majority, if not the whole, of their time in these places; each angel was shown around the Garden and upper echelon of Heaven once, then sent immediately to where they were needed most, and there were only so many gardeners and cleaners and guards needed to keep the higher places of Heaven in order; hence, very few angels saw the Garden more than once, and next to none had ever seen God.

Still, despite His absence from their lives, even with the devastation of the battle still hanging in the air, they remained faithful. Gabriel watched as the odd secretary or healer scuttled past in the hallway; previously, they would beam and bow to him, though he knew none of their names. This time they ducked their heads, hiding their faces, flinching at Raphael’s screams. In all fairness, this far down in Heaven one could barely smell the smoke that clogged the air in the Garden, and anyone working here would never have been permitted to venture that far up; the destruction, the entire battle, the causes and the feelings behind those causes were things known only to a precious few; they were pains only the chosen were given.


	27. Chapter 27

The Men of Letters Bunker, Present Day:

Again Gabriel slumped over in the old wooden chair he had taken to sitting in at the library table; Anna sat across from him, Cas to his right and Sam to his left. Dean sat on the other side of Sam; this way, Gabriel didn’t have to put up with loud, slang-studded cries of indignation at even the smallest things, nor did he have to smell his greasy food and cheap whiskey. The old TV, one that looked like it had come straight out of the 70s, hummed away to whoever would listen from its station at the end of the table. The picture was black and white and grainy, but it sufficed to get the general messages from Fox News across to the room. These messages were unfailingly grim; some were no doubt from his brother, some from his aunt, though he was struggling to decipher which one was responsible for sending each individual disaster.

Beside him, Sam dutifully scrolled through page after page of poorly scanned-in PDFs in various combinations of Latin and English. Anna had her head resting in her arms on the desk; Gabriel couldn’t blame her. The others, aside from Dean, who was focused on the monstrosity of a burger before him, had their eyes glued to a fresh set of books dug up from another dusty corner of the world.

Gabriel, quietly and without any sudden movements, rose from his seat. The interrogation room was as dark and musty as it had ever been, the single, cold white light flickering to life as he flicked the stiff switch. They had moved Crowley to a separate room, painting devil’s traps on both the ceiling and floor-for good measure- of another, equally depressing store room; the two’s bickering could be heard from the library, and it had been making it decidedly more difficult to research.

The sliding metal door squealed behind him as he forced it shut, bits of rust flaking off, leaving red dust on the grey concrete. Out of the pile they had made of Rowena’s various magical artefacts, he dug a book, its cover bright red, decorated lavishly with gold filigree; it didn’t fit with the dim atmosphere of the room. He had skimmed it earlier, whipping it off to a deserted corner of the Bunker to peruse it in peace. The table and chair were still positioned before the witch; Gabriel sat, and laid two books in front of her. The first, one he had discovered in one of his raids of the Vatican archives, and the red book of Rowena’s next to it. He opened the books, settling very deliberately on the page numbers.

He breathed a deep sigh as he sat back in his chair, though in it there was no trace of relief. Rowena’s lips remained primly closed; he had to admire her resolve; with firsthand knowledge, grown from experience, of the many things they could do to her, she remained stoic and firm. For a while, the only noise in the room was the soft buzz of the overhead light. This time, Gabriel decided not to take chances, no matter how small, when dealing with Rowena. Out of the inside pocket of his jacket, he produced a thin container and paintbrush.

The expression on Rowena’s face changed infinitesimally; it came from the slight downturn of her eyebrows, the twitch of her jaw as she clenched her teeth. Taking care not to spill any on the books, he opened the slim container of lamb’s blood and placed it on the table. He reached for her hand, placing her arm flush along the tabletop. The bright red symbols he drew on the delicate skin of her wrist and underarm stood in stark contrast to the pale colour of her flesh. With care, he placed the lid back on the container, cleaned the brush, and deposited them both back in his pocket.

“Now,” he began, sitting back, “I think it’s time we all spoke truthfully, don’t you think?”

Heaven, After Lucifer’s Fall:

Gabriel leaned against an ornately carved marble banister, on a colonnaded balcony overlooking the Garden of Eden. His fingers traced the smooth surface of the stone; it seemed to be the only one left undamaged in the battle. Lucifer had gone to great lengths to break or ruin as much of Heaven as possible, with a particular focus on God’s favorite part: The Garden. 

He had not seen the Garden as busy as it was that day in centuries; angelic masons (yes, there was such a thing; God couldn’t maintain everything Himself) chipped and sanded away at the stone buildings, cleaners swept away the debris and dust, healers frantically fixed what wildlife was left and disposed of the many grisly remains of God’s creatures that littered the lawns, while gardeners scurried about fixing the plants that had been damaged in the fight, under the direction of Joshua, who tended to the Tree itself. Seraphim guards watched over the entire charade, while God, Michael, and His irritatingly increasingly present scribe were holed up in the throne room, where they had been since the fight concluded.

Raphael was organizing the lower ranks, no doubt preparing them for the speech Gabriel was certain was the reason the throne room had remained firmly shut for so long; they were entering a new era, one that left an uncomfortable sense of dread in his stomach, and one that would need to be navigated with the utmost finesse. Gabriel had been left to oversee the reparation of Heaven, a task he deemed more fitting of a handy-man, rather than an archangel. However, he had been raised not to gripe, and so remained stoic and alert, standing on his perch, high above the chaos that bubbled below.

He pulled his eyes away from the blood-soaked grass; rivulets of rust-colored water were beginning to roll downhill from where the angels, with excruciating slowness, were washing the blood of the perished animals and their fallen comrades away. The Sun had almost dropped below the horizon, though the air was still hot and clogged from the fumes of the battle. He hurried along the colonnade and down a set of marble steps, past busied artisans and cleaners, away from the carnage. His feet eventually touched cool, clean grass, a patch that had, by some miracle, escaped the blood and gore and fire. A canopy of fresh green leaves still hung above his head, and a pond, water still a clear aquamarine, lay calm before him. Each feature seemed to have been picked from the corner of the globe in it had been perfected; the pool seemed something out of some distant tropical paradise, while the huge oaks surrounding it belonged in the northern reaches of the world, and the red soil from which the lush grass sprouted, that blended with the pristine white sand at the shore of the water appeared to be from another realm entirely.

Falling to his knees, Gabriel dipped his hands gingerly into the water, sending out ripples across the surface and luring the small fish that dwelled there out of their holes in the sand and rocks, then sending them scattering as they realised the source of the commotion. He ran his hands over his face and through his hair, washing off some of the layer of grime that had accumulated there. With a sigh, his eyes drifted back to the pond. The ripples from his intrusion had begun to settle; he watched them with thoughtless rapture as they smoothed out, again leaving the surface still and clear. His rapture was broken as the surface again was disturbed, though the ripples emanated from the opposite side of the pool. His head whipped up, to see a bird perched at the water’s edge, half trapped under a broken stick, dipping its wings gingerly into the water, flitting about in a rather odd manner. Its behaviour was explained as Gabriel saw the small streak of red spilling out into the blue pond, feathering across the water in a single stream. The light had now almost faded, though the birds colour gave it a certain glow.

He slowly, carefully stood up, walking quietly along the edge of the pool to where the bird- which he was now able to identify as one of the pure white doves that covered the Garden in abundance- thrashed about, its movements becoming ever more frantic as he approached. Ignoring the bird’s fear, he freed it from underneath the branch and scooped it up, cradling it delicately in his hands. It trembled as he ran his fingers over it, but had ceased to flap and writhe, and let out a thin warble.

“Shhh,” he hushed it, as he inspected it; its wing was bent at an unnatural angle, and blood seeped out from a gash on its side, out of which protruded small splinters. He ran his hand over it once more, after which it flapped away, its side again a pure, uninterrupted white.  

Gabriel looked up to the sky; the Sun had now fully departed, and a few stars were beginning to shine above him, though clouds of smoke still hung heavy in the distance, marking the location of the bloodshed. He washed his hands in the pool, as the moon, which always rose early and huge in Heaven, climbed its way above his head. The blood on his skin was near invisible in the water of the pool, which, in the darkness, had turned a deep purple-blue. Hands clean, he again ran his hands over his face, washing away the last of the ash and grime that clung to his skin and hair. With a sigh, he stood, the coolness of the water lingering on his face, and, with heavy steps, followed the smoke clouds back.

The Men of Letters Bunker, Present Day:

“I don’t know what you mean.”

It was a rather meek attempt on Rowena’s part to foil the spell; if Gabriel didn’t ask a question, she did not have to tell him the truth. However, her revolt was rather short-lived.

“Which of these is true?” Gabriel rested a hand on each book, leaning forward for effect. Her jaw trembled in another attempt to resist, but this rebellion was as fleeting as her first.

“The first one is some old coot’s mumbo-jumbo; priests used to regurgitate that shite all the time to make themselves feel smart. You can’t fight fire with fire, dearie.”

“So one can’t defeat the dark with light?”

“No, the opposite,” she sighed loudly, tone impatient and somewhat exasperated, “You need dark to defeat light, and light to defeat dark. Dark vs Dark, it doesn’t work; you end up with double the bad. Cough, cough, the Mark of Bloody Cain. You’re wasting your time with that bullshit; that stuff is too easy to break. Not sure how much that book cost you, but you’re gonna want your money back. And besides; only God can apply the Mark of Cain and that ship sailed a long time ago, with Him on it.”

Gabriel fell silent, head spinning. He sat back in his chair, and placed his hands on his knees, as though to steady himself. All of a sudden something in his mind clicked, and his brow furrowed and jaw clenched.

“Then why did you try and use the scroll?”

Her jaw and mouth trembled even more than they had before, and her eyes were shinier than usual.

“I was desperate!” The words came out as a shriek. “I thought, since I had seen it in my crystal ball, maybe it would work. I had no other leads, and neither did you! I did what was in my power to do. And if I hadn’t come out with anything, you lot would have burnt me at the stake!”

It was true, Gabriel wouldn’t have minded a good witch-hunt, but for some reason he found himself too tired to act on his frustrations at that point.

“Do you know what light there would be in the world that would work?” He spoke quietly, deliberately, his voice rising towards the end.

“No,” she spoke, voice equally as soft, “but I can still help; I have connections, I know people. I can help research, and in the end you might need my help anyway, with spells or so forth…” Her voice trailed off to a squeaky whisper. Gabriel saw fear in her eyes, and felt it reflected in his.

The Beginning:

Michael’s hands were warm where they gripped Gabriel’s arms; their Father had gone elsewhere after the Darkness had fled, though where exactly this ‘elsewhere’ was was never really explained to him. They still floated in space; no planets or even debris existed yet for them to alight on, and so Gabriel had been kept afloat by his brothers, sometimes gripping the hands of just one, sometimes by holding the hands of two, or by clinging to all three at once.

But it had been explained to him that they could not go on forever in this way, and Gabriel had begun to look on in envy as his older siblings spread and flapped their wings in graceful and silent power, flying where they pleased. Often Gabriel found himself longing to follow them, but he remained immobile.

Michael smiled down at him, as Lucifer and Raphael circled. Gabriel had spent the entire amount of time since God had left trying again and again to move his own wings as his brothers did; he had begun with simple, small, sporadic twitches, and progressed to uncoordinated, embarrassingly weak flaps. He felt for the first time dismay. He watched Michael’s wings, huge and glimmering white and gold, as he effortlessly hovered before him. Lucifer and Raphael twisted and turned in the air in dizzying spirals and circles, their wings equally as beautiful as they shone in the light of their graces. Gabriel’s were not ugly, but nonetheless he felt inadequate as he continued to struggle. He looked up once more to his brothers, and felt a pang of panic as he saw only Michael and Raphael. He frantically looked around, until he saw Lucifer floating about fifty yards behind him.

Michael turned Gabriel to face him, while he continued to furiously flap his wings in imitation of his elder siblings. Eventually Lucifer drew closer, and the distance between them grew smaller and smaller. It was with a significant degree of surprise that Gabriel noticed the absence of Michael’s heat at his back; he turned to see Michael hovering a good thirty yards behind him, and, with an air of the surreal, he realized it was his own wings keeping him afloat, not his brother’s. The surprise gave way to joy as he whipped back around and, pumping his new-found wings, soared clumsily into Lucifer, laughter, for the first time, spilling forth from his mouth, mingling with that of his brothers.

All of a sudden, Lucifer whipped away from him, soaring backwards, Raphael and Michael at his heels; with elation and pride in his gut, Gabriel soared among them.

The Men of Letters Bunker, Present Day:

A fresh bout of crackling erupted from the television to his right. The picture was blurry and the audio broken, but the message was clear; Mackinac Island, Michigan, had been declared a quarantined location. The news anchor told of an unidentified, highly contagious virus sweeping the city, with fifty percent of the population already showing symptoms, and twenty-five casualties, within twelve hours of the first death.

They looked around at each other, expressions doleful. Sam was the first to speak.

“Should we-,” he was interrupted by his older brother.

“It’s too late. Island’s gone, just hope it doesn’t spread. We’ll save more lives sooner by tracking down Amara and Lucifer, whichever did it.”

Cas quietly muted the set, the room falling back into silence.

The deathly silence weighed on him, pressing his shoulders and feet towards the floor. The weight lifted slightly when he found himself again in the interrogation room, though this time he paced the floor behind Rowena, rather than sitting in the rusty chair before her.

“Are you certain you know nothing?”

“What part of a truth spell do you not understand?” He could practically hear her eyes rolling in their sockets. “No, I don’t know anything more. I know some places you could look, but other than that, I’m stumped.” Hurriedly, she added, “Not that I can’t be of use to you; you may need a witch of my prowess in a venture like this.”

Gabriel ceased his pacing, though it was more out of exhaustion than anything else. He reluctantly resorted to humoring her; he was too tired not too, and completely out of options; the books they were scouring were coming up blanks. He often felt they were reading them simply to give themselves the illusion of productivity.

“Where would you suggest?” His words came out as a sigh.

“Well,” she began- he could almost feel her shark-like grin again stretching across her face-, “I, personally, would start at the beginning.”

The Beginning:

Gabriel, pressed close between his brothers, watched with a mixture of awe and fascination as his Father gestured grandly in the distance. Soundlessly, huge clouds of gas spun throughout space, collapsing under its own weight and flattening into a disc-like shape. The phenomenon was entirely new to all of them, and at that point, aside from their brothers and Father, was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen. The process was lengthy, though they never tired of watching their Father work, while they glided and dived and locked blades in play-fights. They were completely enraptured when the first Sun began to form. The core was heavy and dense, the radioactive zone even more fascinating, with each layer, as it was created, adding a new function to the creation, and a new dimension of beauty.

When the Sun was finished, tentatively, they drifted closer. It was nowhere near as bright and warm as them or God, but it was beautiful nonetheless; they ran their hands through the flames erupting from the surface, dancing and flitting among them, occasionally disappearing beneath the first layer, reemerging with a tuft of fire trailing them.

Immersed in the heat of the Sun, surrounded by their brothers and Father, the world of warm and safe, the black of the universe a distant memory. He dived once more into the flames, hovering among them, soaking in their warmth and light. The cold again began to creep in, though he was certain he was still beneath the surface; he had not even flexed his wings. Despite his stationary state, he saw Darkness again seeping in; the flames began to die, the deeper layers began to break apart. Again he felt unease, and longed for his brothers; for their warmth, their safety. Instinct drove him in the opposite direction of the coming dark, as he plowed deeper into the Sun, desperate to escape the cold.

He flapped his wings furiously, but still the Sun broke up around him. Just as the cold air began to flutter at the back of his neck, a strong hand, warm this time, pulled him roughly back into space. The hand that had gripped him had been God’s, though He released him into his brother’s arms as soon as he was out of harm’s way, stretching out His great arms to cover them.  

A new feeling gripped Gabriel; it was akin to the feelings he had experienced when he was particularly frustrated at his lack of flying ability, though this was much greater, went far deeper, and was without hope; this feeling was loss. The Sun, the first Sun that God had ever created, a work of art and toil, was being ripped into tiny pieces before them, sparks and fire flying out into space, extinguishing before their eyes.  Again the Dark creature, whose name was never given to him, had torn its way into their life with brute force, tossing the pieces of the Sun, throwing some at their Father between actual blows against Him. Gabriel trembled against his brothers, unsure of how to help, and wracked with loss.

He felt one of his brothers let go of him; Lucifer had begun to make a beeline for the Darkness, where She landed huge punches and kicks to God. Gabriel’s unease increased exponentially; he was certain that this time, he would lose both his Father and a brother. Raphael and Michael stayed stock still, Gabriel shaking between them. The debris from the Sun, the blur of Dark and Light and the speed at which they were moving made it difficult for him to follow, but he did see a single bright flash of light, as the Darkness winced, retreating back into the blackness of the now still empty universe.

The Men of Letters Bunker, Present Day: 

A long time ago, Gabriel had made the decision that humans, despite their flaws, were when it came down to it far superior in many respects to any angel, archangels included. Gabriel’s mind had an understanding of the workings of the universe and everything in it that was unimaginable to basically every other life form in existence, could recall every second of his life with perfect clarity, yet still, on occasion, humanity managed to upstage him. He found himself wondering why the witch in front of him, a mere few hundred years old, compared with the billions of years that he had behind him, could utter an answer as clear and ingenious as the one that she just had. In the silence, he could feel her grin widen.

“Care to elaborate?” Her silence prompted him to push her.

“Who was there in the beginning? Who was close to God? Who did he confide in?”

“In the beginning? Well, obviously first there were just God and the Darkness.”

“And then?”

Gabriel had moved around the edge of the room enough to have her face in view; the smile was there: in her lips, her cheeks, her eyes.

“Michael, then Lucifer, Raphael, and me,” the mention of that time, to him, some distant idyllic era, brought up a sharp pang in his heart.

“Next question,” her eyes met Gabriel’s, the witches’ crow’s feet creasing even more.  

Gabriel hesitated. God had only been able to create more lifeforms other than the archangels after His sister had been put away; by this point, the universe had lost all innocence to Gabriel. The battle and its consequences had soured his mind and heart; it was his first taste of true, cruel violence, the first time he had not attacked something in jest, but with the intent of causing it real, agonizing pain. The moment God had given Lucifer the Mark of Cain, Gabriel had realized two things: first, that his brother would never be the same; one day, they would lose him as they had Amara. Second, he realized that his Father, Whom he had devoted his life to, Whom he loved less than no other, had more love in Him for Lucifer than He would ever have for the rest of them.

The Beginning:

Much time had passed since Lucifer first struck the Darkness. A definite sorrow had begun to cloak them; it spread from the sombre, slow movements of their Father, to the decrease in flying for pure joy and the increase in battle-training in the archangels’ lives. God had made several further attempts at creation; on one occasion, He had even managed to bring into existence some planets, though they were still barren when His sister had destroyed them. He was distant, thoughtful, quiet. Occasionally, He would confide in Lucifer, sometimes even Michael, though he seemed to dislike burdening either.

Gabriel would feel sharp pangs in his chest at the memories of his sparring sessions and conversations with his Father, a tradition now deceased. For the most part, this role had been fulfilled by Raphael, whom learned from Lucifer, whom learned from Michael. From time to time, he would get lessons from Lucifer or even sometimes Michael, though these were rare occasions. It was his first introduction, he supposed, looking back, to the future social hierarchy of Heaven, something he had made a significant effort to leave behind.  

The Men of Letters Bunker, Present Day:

“So…?” Rowena left the question hanging.

“So?” Gabriel faced the front of the room, hand leaning against the sliding door, gaze to the floor.

 “So who was God closest too?”

Gabriel leaned more heavily on the door, resting his head on his arm against it, despite the creaks of complaint it gave. He breathed in the scent of the rusted iron, and let the breath out as a weighty sigh.

The Beginning:

After the defeat of the Darkness, time seemed to flow like pitch. Gabriel had now known an array of emotions: joy, sadness, loss, discomfort. The newest one he had added to his growing repertoire was trepidation. With the slow passage of time, and the steady decay of his elder brother, suspense built in the pit of his stomach. Something insidious was spreading through the current, dismal number of His holy host. Their Father had, for the first time, built a fully functioning solar system, and had busied Himself in recent times by spreading this particular creation throughout the universe. This task He had taken upon Himself to complete had resulted in a notable absence, leaving the archangels to their own bidding.

They had been tasked with the care of the system of planets that God had declared as His favorite. One was covered with vast expanses of water; Gabriel had begun to simply hover above the waves, watching as suns sparked into life and back out as his Father created them, marveling at the beauty. God had made it clear that His work there in the sky and on Earth was not done; in the meantime, they were to ensure that the planet continued on its set path of “natural” processes, as the land rose and shrank beneath the water, and the earth underneath cracked and changed shape with the moving of the liquid core.

All noticed the change in Lucifer. It was gradual, sinister, and silent.  He had started his tasks with zeal, looked upon his Father’s creation with adoration and awe. But he had begun to ignore the Earth, even to spite some of it; he hid away in dark caves on other planets, scowling at the lights spreading across the universe. While Lucifer had once been God’s port of call, the one in whom He confided the deepest concerns and thoughts, no longer did He seek Lucifer’s council; not in private, nor among the other archangels. He did not take any particular interest in transferring this role onto any of the others; for a long time, He held the burdens of His work on His shoulders alone.

After a particularly long absence, however, God returned to Earth and began to work more furiously than He ever had before; above the waters He created the Heavens, a place, He said, for the angels to reside, to watch over the Earth from. Massive expanses of grass covered much of the Earth below, great forests of trees and plants newly designed spread in swathes, rains began to fall and snow coated the northern and southern reaches of the Earth in a white shroud. Small creatures hopped clumsily from the water and began to transform into great beasts of the land, which in turn began to do things so marvelous none of them could have imagined; they flew as angels did, climbed as they did, and danced in mating rituals and birthed and raised young, which in turn would change into some other fantastical creature, which would breed and die as their ancestors had.

The archangels watched upon this in rapture; even Lucifer emerged from the dark places in which he had been hiding to watch the spectacle. Once the work was done, and God had rested, He brought them to his prize creation: The Garden of Eden. He took them into His throne room, which glimmered in gold, white marble and jewels of all kinds. It was with surprise that they were greeted with another angel, one they had never seen before. At first sight it was clear that this angel was not like them; it was weaker, smaller, duller, but still family. God introduced the angel as Metatron; this angel would be His scribe.

The Men of Letters Bunker, Present Day:

Sam’s voice rang in his head. He reached out for it, the surroundings of the interrogation room falling away, to be replaced by the close confines of Sam’s bedroom. Sam sat on the edge of his bed, the sheets creased around him. His gaze was directed at the floor. The room remained in silence, but for the fading flutter of Gabriel’s wings.

Neither spoke for a time.

“It feels,” Sam began, though he hesitated before continuing, his eyebrows knitted together, lips tight.

“I know.” Gabriel didn’t move from his spot by the door.

“No,” Sam continued, “I don’t think you do. It seems like such a long time.”

“What does?”

“Since you’ve been back.”

Again the room fell into silence.

“Since you died,” Sam finished.

Gabriel leaned on the end of the bed, facing the door. His eyes found the concrete floor.

“Were you sorry?”

Sam paused before he answered.

“Yeah,” he began, voice husky, “I think I was. Dean wouldn’t have wanted me to be, so I tried not to. I buried it I guess. And I didn’t know you. Not really.”

“Do you want to?” Gabriel stumbled over the words. “Know me?”

“I think so. I feel like I know more about now than I did then.”

Gabriel wanted to ask what he thought he knew about him, but decided he might not like the answer. Sam told him anyway.

“I know you’re not all bad.”

He couldn’t have spoken worse words. Gabriel’s eyes watered; another little quirk picked up from his vessel. He again felt the blood of the infant on his hands, the warmth of it spreading up his hands. He saw where he had left Castiel, bleeding in the snow in Greenland. He thought of all the lives he had taken, simply to prove some point that he probably could have proven clean of blood. A tear landed on his hands, too warm; he dried it quickly, and blinked the rest away.

“What does Dean think?” Gabriel managed, somehow, to stop his voice from cracking.

Sam huffed a laugh. “Dean thinks everything out there is a monster. Sometimes even me. Not that he doesn’t have good reason.”

Gabriel’s brow crinkled. He looked around at Sam, behind him to his right, where he sat with his head in his hands.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I let Amara out. I killed Death. I feel like, all this destruction, all those lives; they’re on me.”

“No,” Gabriel answered a little too quickly, a little too loudly, “This isn’t on you at all; you thought you were doing the right thing, and everyone fucks up sometimes Sam. Even angels.”

He moved to sit next to Sam, and placed his arm across his shoulders, gently, so as to not to hurt him.

“And if I’ve ever seen an angel in America, you look more like one than Roma Downy,” he finished with a smirk.

Sam laughed, and Gabriel felt a warmth erupt inside him, spreading from his stomach, to his heart, his face, his hands; he wanted nothing more than for this happiness and heat to spread through the tips of his fingers into Sam’s body, for him to feel the warmth and elation coursing through Gabriel.

Sam’s smile began to fade, and the cold again crept into Gabriel.

“Just, promise me something?”

“Anything,” Gabriel’s voice was thick with conviction.

“No more lying. No more hurting people, even if they are dicks. OK?”

The cold spread even further, clenching his throat and heart. Through the cold’s grip he managed to mutter an agreement, one he sincerely hoped he would able to keep.

 

 

 

 


	28. Chapter 28

Midnight had rolled around by the time Sam and Gabriel had ceased to talk, though they were not for want of subject matter; Sam had eventually drifted off to sleep. Gabriel lay next to Sam in the bed, fully clothed, eyes glued on Sam’s prone figure; he would sometimes sigh, while his eyelashes fluttered occasionally, causing such flutters in Gabriel’s own stomach and eliciting sighs from his own mouth.

Gabriel allowed his mind to wander back, and found, to his surprise, that not within his current memory- and his memory was exceptional- could he recall a first true, close, personal encounter-the first time they let you truly see them- with someone that had been so enrapturing as his and Sam’s had been, that involved absolutely no sex. For three hours, they had lain next to each other, words and laughter streaming out of their mouths, with no intention of having those mouths meet; they talked for the sake of talking, not for the sake of getting laid.

He had known that Sam had been smart, but the younger Winchester was able to fascinate Gabriel with things that he had no idea about: tiny events in history, some little known painting or song, strange philosophies and little-known people. He took pleasure in knowing as well, that he had been able to hold Sam in rapture through the information that Gabriel had been giving; the look of delight and hunger that took over his green eyes had, at several points, almost driven Gabriel further out of his mind than he already was.

His mind cleared with the steady rhythm of Sam’s breathing beside him. The flickering light above them did nothing to diminish Sam’s beauty: the softly tanned, bare skin of his neck, the flutter of his eyelashes, the rise and fall of his chest. After a few more moments of this bliss, the fluttering fluoro light and the coarse sheets gave way to the dim and dusty interrogation room; one of the only two dull lights in the room had gone, leaving the left side of the room in darkness. He moved to the shadowed half.

“Hello?” Rowena’s voice was impatient, “Is there anyone home?”

Gabriel sighed again, and let the silence hang while he tried to force the words to his lips.

“Lucifer.”

“And after him? There wasn’t anyone else?”

He squeezed his eyes shut, taking deep, slow breaths to calm the accelerated heart-beat of his vessel.

“Guess.”

“I thought I was the one asking the questions here.”

“Guess,” he repeated. This time his voice was loud enough to echo through the room, bouncing off the concrete walls and metal door. When she next spoke, Rowena’s voice was taut and quiet.

“Metatron, by any chance?” She hesitated, “Wherever the little weasel is?”

She seemed to take his silence as a confirmation, and, her voice louder and stronger now, continued.

“Well he’s our guy, then. I know the others may not like it, I understand they’ve had their differences, but if we can’t find Lucifer, then we need Metatron. Especially given that Metatron will be a helluva lot easier to find and make talk than the Dark Prince himself; he’s human, aye? And I feel like, and I’m just hypothesizing here, don’t you think Lucifer would have put Amara away by now if he knew how? He’s got the power; Metatron might know but, doesn’t possess the means to carry through.”

They were thoughts that had been scratching at the back of Gabriel’s brain for some time now, but he had been beating them steadily back with all the strength he had. Metatron had never been particularly welcoming to Gabriel, and, he couldn’t lie, his Fathers’ dedication to and trust in Metatron had elicited a certain amount of jealousy in Gabriel. Lucifer had felt this jealousy himself, as soon as the younger angel was created, but Lucifer at that stage felt jealousy towards most things. Still, the fact that Gabriel had experienced the same emotion directed at the same thing as Satan himself had often tugged at the corners of his mind.

He also doubted that they would be able to easily convince the Winchesters to work with the little sneak; he had done some rather dishonorable things in the past few years, as far as Gabriel had been told. However, he had to hold out hope; without it, he didn’t have a whole lot. In this time, Gabriel had not moved out of the dark side of the room; Rowena could not see him leave.

Gabriel eased himself back down onto the bed next to Sam, and, after changing the cold white light to a warm, yellow and altogether more appealing Tiffany lamp, he turned it off, plunging the room into darkness. The hallway outside was also dark, and the blackness seemed absolute; or it would to a human. Gabriel could still see the minutest details of the room in more wavelengths than any human would ever know of, but his vessel railed at the sudden darkness. For a long time, he had been able to easily separate the automatic reactions of the human body he inhabited from the sensations that he himself, as a celestial body, experienced. The longer he spent in this vessel however, the harder that had become to accomplish.

It was with panic that again Gabriel felt the memory of his time in the cold darkness that he knew now waited beyond the veil for all angels, creeping down from the nape of his neck, down his spine, slinking out over his ribs, then his lungs, then his heart. In panic, he buried his face into Sam’s neck, ducking under the covers like a child and throwing his arms around Sam. Sam did not wake, but as his body heat began to warm them both, the cold sank away, and Gabriel allowed his vessel to drift off to sleep.

*****

Gabriel awoke to the now warm light of the ceiling lamp above him. His eyes were bleary in a way he had never experienced before, his mouth gummy and his limbs stiff. He blinked several slow blinks, stretched, reveling in the openness that spread through his chest and stomach. He yawned, another human sensation entirely new to him. As he yawned, he turned his sight to the other side of the bed. Sam sat with his bare back to him. As he stretched, Gabriele marveled at the taut, sinewy muscles that moved in a thousand different ways under his tan, smooth skin, glistening in the yellow light.

Sam turned to half face him, his head in profile. The smooth curves and sharp angels of his face captivated Gabriel, as he caressed the sheets on the bed, of pure white silk. Gabriel reached back to stroke the carved wooden corners of the bed, and watched in awe as white feathers filled the room, sprouting forth from Sam’s shoulders and enveloping him, turned the air into snow and light and down.

It was as Sam’s wings grew too bright to gaze upon that the room again returned to its typical state: warm lighting, rough sheets, broken bed and cracked, concrete walls. Sam stood in the corner of the room, pulling a grey shirt over his head and throwing a white button down on top. He ran a brush quickly through his hair, and turned around to where Gabriel was sitting up in the bed.

“I thought angels didn’t need to sleep.”

“We don’t need to eat either, but I ain’t giving that shit up,” he grinned sleepily at Sam as he heaved himself up.

Sam laughed, pulling Gabriel towards him. Gabriel had been hoping for a kiss, but instead Sam set about straightening his jacket and running the hair brush through Gabriel’s hair a few times. Gabriel found, much to his surprise, that the feeling was actually quite pleasant.

At that, Sam swung his arm over Gabe’s shoulders, and slowly plodded along the hallway to the kitchen. He removed his arm as he rubbed his eyes, moving for the coffee cupboard. A thought then occurred to Gabriel, and, gently, he guided Sam’s hands away and seated him at the table. Sam’s face was vaguely confused, but he didn’t protest, instead plonking himself down heavily onto the chair. The others must have been in the library working, or off somewhere else, judging by the quiet that hung in the air. The growl of the coffee pot put an end to the quiet, which was further stifled by the clink of pots and pans and cupboard doors as Gabriel amassed what he could find; anything else, he conjured up easily.

As Gabriel cooked, the old radio sputtered to life in the corner, spluttered words in staccato, all related to various natural disasters or homicides or disease outbreaks; the United States had its fair share of horrors, but Amara had begun to move on to other locales. Australia was being burnt alive in wildfires, Japan was being blown to all hell by tsunamis, not to mention the resurgence of Ebola in Africa or the famine in Russia.

As the eggs hit the pan, the noise of it sizzling in the oil drowned out the harbingers, an effect strengthened with each rasher of bacon or mushroom that touched the metal. He heard Sam breathe in deeply behind him, and savoured the sweet smell of the cooking food himself. Briefly, he inspected the Winchesters’ coffee-making facilities, and immediately deemed them inadequate. He recalled the best coffee he’d ever had, and set a replica in front of Sam. The cool air steamed as it met the hot liquid, and Sam’s eyes rolled back in his head as he sipped; a small groan escaped his lips, rendering Gabriel temporarily incompetent.

Gabriel set down a plate piled with as many things as Sam could possibly want: eggs, bacon, toast, mushrooms, hash browns, sausages etc., and began immediately on dessert: his personal favourite.

He began to hum over the bubble of pancakes in the frying pan and waffles sizzling in the waffle maker. There was almost always singing in Heaven; great choirs would resound their voices through the halls and gardens. Often those other angels, going about their God-given work, would hum along, adding to the symphony. But there were some songs that almost all of God’s host did not know; the one Gabriel was singing to Sam was one such piece. It was an old song: Enochian, one his Father and brothers used to sing to each other.

For the first time in a very long time, the notes of his brothers’ voices echoed in his mind. Raphael’s was oddly husky, but deep; Michael’s was high, clear and pure; his own quieter, steady, always hanging in the middle. Lucifer’s was the most beautiful however- as almost everything about him was-, and could soar smoothly from deep baritone hums to the pure notes that Michael typically sang, and everything in the middle, every note steady and strong.

He had, for a long time, regarded these memories as some of his last spent in true happiness. However, as he changed Sam’s plate to one piled high with pancakes and waffles and whipped cream and maple syrup, watched as he rolled his eyes and smiled, forcing down bite after bite through laughs and chortles, he wondered if that was still true. Together, they managed to clean up the evidence pretty quickly, but not quick enough for Dean to not smell the remnants of it.

“Dude, who’s cooking breakfast?” Dean’s voice drowned out the noise of the radio and of Sam and Gabriel giggling; the peace of the morning had left them.

“Gabriel is,” Sam chimed in, to playfully betrayed expressions and words of disbelief from the archangel by his side. Reluctantly, and really simply to please Sam- in addition, Sam wanted more coffee- he repeated the whole charade again, savoring the noises that came from Sam’s throat as he downed his second mug; the noises that came from Dean were decidedly less alluring.

Two plates and six cups of coffee later, and both Winchesters were full to bursting and wide awake. Gabriel had turned off the decrying radio a while ago; death counts were being added up for an earthquake in New Zealand, and there was a particularly large amount of children being listed as missing persons were named and described.

Sam and Dean had begun their daily task of checking every news site, blog and database they could find for potential cases; he had come to learn that it was near impossible to distract them from this, and that unless they had a good reason not to be, both were somewhat unreachable while in this ‘mode’.

Gabriel took their state of distraction as a cue to exit; he doubted they noticed the flutter of his wings as he departed. This time the light in the interrogation room was even dimmer than before; the only remaining overhead light flickered in and out of life frantically.

“Why don’t you ever go and bother my son?” Rowena’s voice was harsh and cracked.

“Your son is an idiot. You are not.”

She huffed in laughter. “You’re right there. Must have gotten it from his father.”

Gabriel slumped down into the chair in front of her; it groaned with the weight, too loud in the tiny room. Gabriel remained silent.

“Aren’t you gonna ask me anything? And is there any chance I can get some water? Food? Stretch my legs? You’re luckily I’m hardier than most or I’d be dead already.”

There was a pause.

Gabriel eventually set down a sandwich and glass of water before her.

“I can’t eat it, numb-nuts; I’m shackled to this chair.”

With a sigh, he removed the chains holding her down, but left the warded shackles. As soon as the chains were off, she dived for the plate, shoving the sandwich into her mouth and down her throat in a matter of seconds, and downing the entire glass of water immediately after; Gabriel was actually somewhat impressed.

“Now can we talk?” Gabriel leant forward, resting his arms on the table. Rowena slumped backwards, out of breath from her feasting. She grinned, slowly shaking her head. He tilted his head for clarification. She raised her hands, shaking the cuffs by which she was bound.

“Next time we talk, it will be as your equal, dearie.”

Gabriel let out an exasperated sigh, rubbing his hands over his face. He contemplated her demand. On the one hand, she was pretty damn powerful witch, whom they would likely need to see this whole Amara mess through. On the other hand, she was a pretty damn powerful witch, but he was an archangel, and a human, witch or not, could be pretty easily controlled. She drew an audible breath of relief as the old metal shackles fell to the floor; Gabriel felt no similar reaction coming over him.

*****

His feelings on the matter were reflected in the faces of the other current residents of the Bunker as he entered the library, Rowena in front, in clear view. Apparently this was a big enough event to snap the Winchesters, whom had moved to the library from the kitchen, out of their research; both came galloping out to stop both Gabriel and Rowena in their tracks.

“What the hell is this?” Sam’s voice was louder than Gabriel had heard it in a long time; he flinched at the volume.  

“Look,” he began, “I know what you’r-“

“Why the hell is she walking free?” Dean managed to shout even louder than his brother.

“Because she is more useful like this. I have her under control.”

“Yeah well, we’ve made that mistake in the past too and we ended up in a steaming pile of bullshit,” The older Winchester’s gestures were so wild that Gabriel had to dodge a few.

“With all due respect,” Gabriel responded, “you’re both human.”

“What?” Sam looked almost hurt.

“Look, no offense,” Gabriel added, “but, you know-”

“No we do not know!” Dean interrupted.

Gabriel rolled his eyes.

“But I am an archangel. We now have two archangels, at full power.”

That silenced the room. Both Sam and Dean opened their mouths to protest, though neither could seemingly find any words to deliver.

“In terms of power levels, sorry, not to toot my own horn, but I’ve got a pretty freaking big jump on all of you but Raphael. I know how to deal with her now; I was sloppy before, but, guys you have to trust me; this will work out. After all, I am the Trickster,” he finished, with a wink and a smirk.

Both Winchesters clenched their jaws tight. Gabriel brushed past them, giving Sam’s hand a light squeeze, pulling him briefly in the direction of the library.

“Regardless,” he continued, talking over the squeal of the chair as he pulled it out for Sam, “I think we’ve got our next move.”

“What?” Sam slumped heavily into the chair.

“You won’t like it,” Rowena was slightly more graceful in her entrance, holding her head up straight and shoulders back, a thin, dainty smile on her face.

“What a surprise,” Dean chimed in, taking a swig from his flask. He screwed up his face, holy water dripping down his chin, and promptly took an even bigger gulp from his whiskey flask.

“Well, what is it?” Sam sighed.

Gabriel was silent. He lowered himself into the seat next to Sam, and gripped his knee.

“Metatron.”

The word was met with a number of disgruntled groans and sighs.

“Seriously?” Dean narrowed his eyes at him, “That’s your big plan?”

“Look,” Gabriel leaned forward, still grasping Sam’s knee, “he’s our best bet. I know him, I know how close he was to God. I was the one always stuck outside His throne room while those two spent literally days of quality time together. It started just after the Mark was created; just after Amara was put away.”

He was again greeted with glares and grunts of doubt.

Gabriel began to open his mouth again to speak, but was cut short as the words were about to leave his mouth.

“He’s right,” Raphael’s words were imbued with the sense of finality that only his older brothers and Father had seemed to master. “I do not care for the scribe; I never have. Unfortunately, however, it seems we are at a stale-mate. Also, as far as I am aware, the scribe is now human; he will not be difficult to control.”

Unlike the vast majority of humans, the words of two archangels were not enough to relieve the Winchesters of their doubt, nor did they ever shy from voicing their opinions on whatever matter was at hand. This situation was no exception.

“Yeah well, you know what I think? Bullshit, is what I think. The guy’s a slippery-ass dick, he’ll cross you and you won’t even see it coming.”

“Eloquent as ever, Dean,” Raphael replied. “We have no choice.”

“Yeah, we don’t,” Sam’s voice was quiet, tired.

Dean glared across the table at his younger brother, then at Gabriel. He remained silent.

“So,” Balthazar broke the silence, “how do we find the bastard?”

“I expect he’s warded himself very well; he had extensive knowledge of the wards God Himself uses. Perhaps a location spell?” Raphael was at attentive as ever, back straight as a pole and eyes wide.

“Easy,” Rowena answered, a tad too eagerly.

“Easy?” Dean sounded skeptical.

“I will need a few things, but not too much. It’s quite simple, really.”

“Make a list,” Raphael’s tone lay half way between a courteous offer and a discreet threat.

 

Heaven, After Lucifer’s Fall:

Gabriel perched alone among the garden atop the Throne Room. It was late afternoon, going on evening, and the sky was a pure shade of blue, just beginning to be tinged with the purples of sunset and night. The grass was soft and green again, the leaves full and the flowers blooming. Delicate butterflies, in a multitude of iridescent colors, fluttered about his head and the bursting florets of the plants around him. He reached out to let one perch on his finger; its legs were as thin as hairs, its wings as fragile as paper. Without moving a muscle, he could end it; crumple up its wings and grind its legs and body out of existence. With a shake of his hand, the insect again took flight, coming to rest on a flower near him, continuing about the tasks God had programmed into all life: eat, reproduce, survive.

However, the Garden seemed to have lost all beauty to Gabriel. When he looked upon a tree, he no longer saw a beautiful, complex piece of his Father’s creation, but the spot where this or that angel died. Not one day ago, the garden bed of which he had always been so fond, with its multitude of exotic flowers, had been crushed by the weight of two of his fallen siblings, their bodies mutilated and bloody, faces barely recognizable from the gore. There was no peace for him here. Accompanying his remaining elder brothers on visits to Earth, to watch as their Fathers’ followers sacrificed oxen and lambs, celebrating as the blood dripped down an altar built in God’s name, did nothing to lift his spirits. Doubt continued to creep in, cold, insidious, and unfamiliar.

Still, through all this, his Father remained obstinately absent. Gabriel had spoken to Him once since the battle. Raphael had spoken to Him only one more time than that, and Michael no more than three times. He could see the strain in his older brothers’ faces, particularly Michael. The younger ones would not recognize it; they hardly knew the archangels, and the archangels hardly knew them. But Gabriel saw it in the slight clench of his jaw, the twitch at the corner of his eyebrow as he stopped it from curling up in worry. When he was turned away from the masses, he would run his fingers along the hilt of his blade, something he had always done in times of trouble.

He felt the grass flatten next to him, to his right. They faced West, where the sun sank as though it was moving through pitch.

“Did He speak to you again?” Gabriel didn’t bother turning his face.

“No. He is conference with Metatron,” Michael’s voice sounded strained. He didn’t seem to bother hiding his concerns these days; previously he had kept them from his younger brothers meticulously, but times had changed them all.

Gabriel remained quiet for a moment. All further questions about that topic seemed rather redundant now; Gabriel knew Michael wasn’t hiding anything from him at this point, but he couldn’t be sure if God was. He asked anyway.

“Why is He gone so much?”

Michael drew a deep breath; not out of exasperation, but rather as a need for strength.

“He is planning. He needs Metatron to help put His plan onto paper and tablet. And he needs time to recuperate,” he added.

Gabriel glanced over at his brother; his wings shone white and gold in the waning light. Now Lucifer was gone, aside from their Father, Michael’s wings were the most beautiful throughout all of Heaven. However, as he stretched them out, Gabriel noticed a rough, ugly line of stitches nestled deep in the feathers, near where the wings met his shoulder blades.

“Will it scar? Why can’t Father fix it?”

“Father hasn’t offered. He’s very busy.”

“Does it hurt?”

Michael looked at him. “A little.”


End file.
